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Poems by William Butler Yeats

Poet, playwright, writer and mystic Irish, born tuesday june 13, 1865 in Sandymount (Ireland), died saturday january 28, 1939 in Menton (France)
You can find this author also in Quotes & Aphorisms.
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The Folly Of Being Comforted

One that is ever kind said yesterday:
'Your well-belovéd's hair has threads of grey,
And little shadows come about her eyes;
Time can but make it easier to be wise
Though now it seems impossible, and so
All that you need is patience. '
Heart cries, "No,
I have not a crumb of comfort, not a grain.
Time can but make her beauty over again:
Because of that great nobleness of hers
The fire that stirs about her, when she stirs,
Burns but more clearly. O she had not these ways
When all the wild summer was in her gaze."
O heart! O heart! If she'd but turn her head,
You'd know the folly of being comforted.
William Butler Yeats
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    Byzantium

    At midnight on the Emperor's pavement flit
    Flames that no faggot feeds, nor steel has lit,
    Nor storm disturbs, flames begotten of flame,
    Where blood-begotten spirits come
    And all complexities of fury leave,
    Dying into a dance,
    An agony of trance,
    An agony of flame that cannot singe a sleeve.
    William Butler Yeats
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      Vacillation

      I
      Between extremities
      Man runs his course;
      a brand, or flaming breath.
      Comes to destroy
      All those antinomies
      Of day and night;
      The body calls it death,
      The heart remorse.
      But if these be right
      What is joy?
      Ii
      a tree there is that from its topmost bough
      Is half all glittering flame and half all green
      Abounding foliage moistened with the dew;
      And half is half and yet is all the scene;
      And half and half consume what they renew,
      And he that Attis'image hangs between
      That staring fury and the blind lush leaf
      May know not what he knows, but knows not grief
      iii
      Get all the gold and silver that you can,
      Satisfy ambition, animate
      The trivial days and ram them with the sun,
      And yet upon these maxims meditate:
      All women dote upon an idle man
      Although their children need a rich estate;
      No man has ever lived that had enough
      Of children's gratitude or woman's love.

      No longer in Lethean foliage caught
      Begin the preparation for your death
      And from the fortieth winter by that thought
      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.
      Iv
      My fiftieth year had come and gone,
      I sat, a solitary man,
      In a crowded London shop,
      An open book and empty cup
      On the marble table-top.
      While on the shop and street I gazed
      My body of a sudden blazed;
      And twenty minutes more or less
      It seemed, so great my happiness,
      That I was blessed and could bless.
      V
      Although the summer Sunlight gild
      Cloudy leafage of the sky,
      Or wintry moonlight sink the field
      In storm-scattered intricacy,
      I cannot look thereon,
      Responsibility so weighs me down.

      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.
      Vi
      a rivery field spread out below,
      An odour of the new-mown hay
      In his nostrils, the great lord of Chou
      Cried, casting off the mountain snow,
      "Let all things pass away."

      Wheels by milk-white asses drawn
      Where Babylon or Nineveh
      Rose; some conquer drew rein
      And cried to battle-weary men,
      "Let all things pass away."

      From man's blood-sodden heart are sprung
      Those branches of the night and day
      Where the gaudy moon is hung.
      What's the meaning of all song?
      "Let all things pass away."
      Vii
      The Soul. Seek out reality, leave things that seem.
      The Heart. What, be a singer born and lack a theme?
      The Soul. Isaiah's coal, what more can man desire?
      The Heart. Struck dumb in the simplicity of fire!
      The Soul. Look on that fire, salvation walks within.
      The Heart. What theme had Homer but original sin?
      Viii
      Must we part, Von Hugel, though much alike, for we
      Accept the miracles of the saints and honour sanctity?
      The body of Saint Teresa lies undecayed in tomb,
      Bathed in miraculous oil, sweet odours from it come,
      Healing from its lettered slab. Those self-same hands perchance
      Eternalised the body of a modern saint that once
      Had scooped out pharaoh's mummy. I—though heart might find relief
      Did I become a Christian man and choose for my belief
      What seems most welcome in the tomb—play a pre-destined part.
      Homer is my example and his unchristened heart.
      The lion and the honeycomb, what has Scripture said?
      So get you gone, Von Hugel, though with blessings on your head.
      William Butler Yeats
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        The Countless Cathleen

        The years like great black oxen tread the world,
        And God the herdsman goads them on behind,
        And I am broken by their passing feet.
        William Butler Yeats
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          A Prayer For My Daughter

          May she become a flourishing hidden tree
          That all her thoughts may like the linnet be,
          And have no business but dispensing round
          Their magnanimities of sound,
          Nor but in merriment begin a chase,
          Nor but in merriment a quarrel.
          William Butler Yeats
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            To The Rose Upon The Rood Of Time

            Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!
            Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways:
            Cuchulain battling with the bitter tide;
            The Druid, grey, wood-nurtured, quiet eyed,
            Who cast round Fergus dreams, and ruin untold;
            And thine own sadness, whereof stars, grown old
            In dancing silver-sandalled on the sea,
            Sing in their high and lonely melody.
            Come near, that no more blinded by man's fate,
            I find under the boughs of love and hate,
            In all poor foolish things that live a day,
            Eternal beauty wandering on her way.

            Come near, come near, come near—Ah, leave me still
            A little space for the rose-breath to fill!
            Lest I no more hear common things that crave;
            The weak worm hiding down in its small cave,
            The field-mouse running by me in the grass,
            And heavy mortal hopes that toil and pass;
            But seek alone to hear the strange things said
            By God to the bright hearts of those long dead,
            And learn to chaunt a tongue men do not know
            Come near; I would, before my time to go,
            Sing of old Eire and the ancient ways:
            Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days.
            William Butler Yeats
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              A Prayer For My Daughter

              In courtesy I'd have her chiefly learned;
              Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned
              By those that are not entirely beautiful;
              Yet many, that have played the fool
              For beauty's very self, has charm made wise.
              And many a poor man that has roved,
              Loved and thought himself beloved,
              From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes.
              William Butler Yeats
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                The Lake Isle Of Innisfree

                I will arise and go now, for always night and day
                I hear the lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
                While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
                I hear it in the deep heart's core.
                William Butler Yeats
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                  A Dialogue Of Self And Soul

                  Long past his prime remember things that are
                  Emblematical of love and war?
                  Think of ancestral night that can,
                  If but imagination scorn the earth
                  And intellect is wandering
                  To this and that and t'other thing,
                  Deliver from the crime of death and birth.
                  William Butler Yeats
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