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
What do you think of when alone at night?Do not the things your mothers spoke about,Before they took the candle from the bedside,Rush up into the mind and master it,Till you believe in them against your will?
I--love's skein upon the ground, My body in the tomb-- Shall leap into the light lost In my mother's womb.
Out of Ireland have we come, great hatred, little room, maimed us at the start. I carry from my mother's womb a fanatic heart.
O heart the winds have shaken, the unappeasable host Is comelier than candles at Mother Mary's feet.
Both nuns and mothers worship images, But those the candles light are not as those That animate a mother's reveries, But keep a marble or a bronze repose.
I have nothing but the embittered sun; Banished heroic mother moon and vanished, And now that I have come to fifty years I must endure the timid sun.
I carry from my mother's womb a fanatic's heart.
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.