William Butler
William Butler
Multi-instrumentalist for the band Arcade Fire who plays bass, synth, guitar, and percussion. He has also worked on movie soundtracks, like the one for Her.
ProfessionGuitarist
Date of Birth6 October 1982
life children men
Give to these children, new from the world, Rest far from men. Is anything better, anything better? Tell us it then....
life men what-matters
A living man is blind and drinks his drop. What matter if the ditches are impure? What matter if I live it all once more?
exercise wind mind
What if I bade you leave The cavern of the mind? There's better exercise In the sunlight and wind.
eye silence mind
For what but eye and ear silence the mind With the minute particulars of mankind?
dream truth heart
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.
truth solitude care
How can they know Truth flourishes where the student's lamp has shone, And there alone, that have no solitude? So the crowd come they care not what may come. They have loud music, hope every day renewed And heartier loves; that lamp is from the tomb.
truth lying men
Bodies of holy men and women exude Miraculous oil, odour of violet. But under heavy loads of trampled clay Lie bodies of the vampires full of blood; Their shrouds are bloody and their lips are wet.
beauty beautiful dream
All dreams of the soul End in a beautiful man's or woman's body.
hands land poetry
All things can tempt me from this craft of verse: One time it was a woman's face, or worse-- The seeming needs of my fool-driven land; Now nothing but comes readier to the hand Than this accustomed toil.
art another-day public-opinion
When we are high and airy hundreds say That if we hold that flight they'll leave the place, While those same hundreds mock another day Because we have made our art of common things ...
sad sole mansions
But Love has pitched his mansion in the place of excrement. For nothing can be sole or whole that has not been rent.
karma men race
Many times man lives and dies between his two eternities: that of race and that of Soul... A brief parting from those dear is the worst man has to fear... Though grave diggers' toil is long... They but thrust their buried men back in the human mind again.
love-is discipline true-love-is
It seems to me that true love is a discipline...
lips world millions
What the world's million lips are searching for, must be substantial somewhere.