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
Bred to a harder thingThan Triumph, turn awayAnd like a laughing stringWhereon mad fingers play Amid a place of stone,Be secret and exult,Because of all things knownThat is most difficult.
When such as I cast out remorseSo great a sweetness flows into the breastWe must laugh and we must sing,We are blest by everything,Everything we look upon is blest.
Test every work of intellect or faith, And everything that your own hands have wrought And call those works extravagance of breath That are not suited for such men as come Proud, open-eyed and laughing to the tomb.
Yet they that know all things but know That all this life can give us is A child's laughter, a woman's kiss.
We are happy when for everything inside us there is a corresponding something outside us.
When such as I cast out remorse; So great a sweetness flows into the breast; We must laugh and we must sing, We are blest by everything, Everything we look upon is blessed.
I have mummy truths to tell Whereat the living mock, Though not for sober ear, For maybe all that hear Should laugh and weep an hour upon the clock.
Laughter not time destroyed my voice And put that crack in it, And when the moon's pot-bellied I get a laughing fit....
Ah, let us kiss each other's eyes,/And laugh our love away.
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.