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
Well, to see rightly is the whole of wisdom, whatever dream be with us.
I have spread my dreams under your feet; tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
Half close your eyelids, loosen your hair,And dream about the great and their pride;They have spoken against you everywhere,But weigh this song with the great and their pride;I made it out of a mouthful of air,Their children's children shall say they have lied.
The last stroke of midnight dies.All day in the one chairFrom dream to dream and rhyme to rhyme I have rangedIn rambling talk with an image of air:Vague memories, nothing but memories.
Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?
Life moves out of a red flare of dreams Into a common light of common hours, Until old age brings the red flare again.
I dreamed that I stood in a valley, and amid sighs, For happy lovers passed two by two where I stood; And I dreamed my lost love came stealthily out of the wood With her cloud-pale eyelids falling on dream-dimmed eyes....
I wonder anybody does anything at Oxford but dream and remember
In dreams begins responsibility.
I wonder anybody does anything at Oxford but dream and remember, the place is so beautiful. One almost expects the people to sing instead of speaking. It is all like an opera.
I have observed dreams and visions very carefully, and am now certain that the imagination has some way of lighting on the truth that the reason has not, and that its commandments, delivered when the body is still and the reason silent, are the most binding we can ever know.
When you are old and gray and full of sleep, and nodding by the fire, take down this book and slowly read, and dream of the soft look your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep.
Take, if you must, this little bag of dreams, Unloose the cord, and they will wrap you round.