William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeatswas an Irish poet and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms. Yeats was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and, along with Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn, and others, founded the Abbey Theatre, where he served as its chief during its early years. In 1923, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth13 June 1865
CitySandymount, Ireland
CountryIreland
Others because you did not keepThat deep-sworn vow have been friends of mine;Yet always when I look death in the face,When I clamber to the heights of sleep,Or when I grow excited with wine,Suddenly I meet your face.
He knows death to the bone --Man has created death.
I am still of opinion that only two topics can be of the least interest to a serious and studious mood - sex and the dead.
We poets would die of loneliness but for women, and we choose our men friends that we may have somebody to talk about women with. Letter to Olivia Shakespeare, 1936
I balanced all, brought all to mind, the years to come seemed waste of breath, a waste of breath the years behind, in balance with this life, this death.
What shall I do for pretty girls Now my old bawd is dead?
In Imagination only we find a Human Faculty that touches nature at one side, and spirit on the other. Imagination may be described as that which is sent bringing spirit to nature, entering into nature, and seemingly losing its spirit, that nature being revealed as symbol may lose the power to delude.
Education is not the filling of the pail, but, the lighting of the fire.
Education is not filling a pail but the lighting of a fire.
Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.
That is no country for old men. The youngIn one another's arms, birds in the trees --Those dying generations -- at their song.
Once more the storm is howling, and half hidUnder this cradle-hood and coverlidMy child sleeps on.
The fascination of what's difficultHas dried the sap out of my veins, and rentSpontaneous joy and natural contentOut of my heart.
I have passed with a nod of the headOr polite meaningless words,Or have lingered awhile and saidPolite meaningless words. . . .