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
I have found nothing half so good / As my long-planned half solitude, / Where I can sit up half the night / With some friend that has the wit...
Life is a long preparation for something that never happens.
only an aching heart Conceives a changeless work of art.
And that enquiring man John Synge comes next, That dying chose the living world for text And never could have rested in the tomb But that, long travelling, he had come Towards nightfall upon certain set apart In a most desolate stony place....
Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart. O when may it suffice?
So long as all is ordered for attack, and that alone, leaders will instinctively increase the number of enemies that they may give their followers something to do.
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.
I am of a healthy long lived race, and our minds improve with age.
Speech after long silence; it is right, All other lovers being estranged or dead . . . That we descant and yet again descant Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song: Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young We loved each other and were ignorant.
The house ghost is usually a harmless and well-meaning creature. It is put up with as long as possible. It brings good luck to those who live with it.
I can forgive even that wrong of wrongs, Those undreamt accidents that have made me Seeing that Fame has perished this long while, Being but a part of ancient ceremony Notorious, till all my priceless things Are but a post the passing dogs defile.
Things thought too long can be no longer thought, For beauty dies of beauty, worth of worth, And ancient lineaments are blotted out.
Like a long-legged fly upon the stream / His mind moves upon silence.
What shall I do for pretty girlsNow my old bawd is dead?