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
We had fed the heart on fantasies,The heart's grown brutal from the fare.
Nothing but sweetness can remain when hearts are full of their own sweetness.
Oh, who could have foretoldThat the heart grows old?
Their hearts are wild,As be the hearts of birds, till children come.
I hear the wind a blowI hear the grass a grow,And all that I know, I know.But I will not speak, I will run away.
I hear the wind a blow I hear the grass a grow, And all that I know, I know. But I will not speak, I will run away.
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore. . . .I hear it in the deep heart's core.
A strange thing surely that my Heart, when love had come unsought Upon the Norman upland or in that poplar shade, Should find no burden but itself and yet should be worn out. It could not bear that burden and therefore it went mad.
Hearts are not had as a gift, But hearts are earned...
The only business of the head in the world is to bow a ceaseless obeisance to the heart.
I would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea! We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fadeand flee; And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the sky, Has awaked in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that may not die.
I broke my heart in two So hard I struck. What matter? for I know That out of rock, Out of a desolate source, Love leaps upon its course.
Out-worn heart, in a time out-worn, Come clear of the nets of wrong and right; Laugh, heart, again in the grey twilight, Sigh, heart, again in the dew of the morn.
Nor seek, for this is also sooth, To hunger fiercely after truth, Lest all thy toiling only breeds New dreams, new dreams; there is no truth Saving in thine own heart.