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
The Bishop has a skin, God knows, Wrinkled like the foot of a goose, (All find safety in the tomb.) Nor can he hide in holy black The heron's hunch upon his back, But a birch-tree stood my Jack....
Everything exists, everything is true and the earth is just a bit of dust beneath our feet.
Fairies in Ireland are sometimes as big as we are, sometimes bigger, and sometimes, as I have been told, about three feet high.
Let us go forth, the tellers of tales, and seize whatever prey the heart long for, and have no fear. Everything exists, everything is true, and the earth is only a little dust under our feet.
Processions that lack high stilts have nothing that catches the eye. What if my great-granddad had a pair that were twenty foot high, And mine were but fifteen foot, no modern stalks upon higher, Some rogue of the world stole them to patch up a fence or a fire.
What shall I do for pretty girlsNow my old bawd is dead?
I sigh that kiss you,For I must ownThat I shall miss youWhen you have grown.
I sigh that kiss you, For I must own That I shall miss you When you have grown.
It would need a great deal of wisdom to know what it is we want to know.
Things said or done long years ago,Or things I did not do or sayBut thought that I might say or do,Weigh me down, and not a dayBut something is recalled,My conscience or my vanity appalled.
Things said or done long years ago, Or things I did not do or say But thought that I might say or do, Weigh me down, and not a day But something is recalled, My conscience or my vanity appalled.
An intellectual hatred is the worst,So let her think opinions are accursed.
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last slouches toward Bethlehem to be born
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, It's with O'Leary in the grave