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.

King And No King

I that have not your faith, how shall I know
That in the blinding light beyond the grave
We'll find so good a thing as that we have lost?
The hourly kindness, the day's common speech,
The habitual content of each with each
When needsither soul nor body has been crossed.
William Butler Yeats
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    The Rose Of The World

    We and the labouring world are passing by:
    Amid men's souls, that waver and give place
    Like the pale waters in their wintry race,
    Under the passing stars, foam of the sky,
    Lives on this lonely face.
    William Butler Yeats
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      Supernatural Songs

      Whence had they come,
      The hand and lash that beat down frigid Rome?
      What sacred drama through her body heaved
      When world-transforming Charlemagne was conceived?
      William Butler Yeats
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        In Memory Of Major Robert Gregory

        I had thought, seeing how bitter is that wind
        That shakes the shutter, to have brought to mind
        All those that manhood tried, or childhood loved
        Or boyish intellect approved,
        With some appropriate commentary on each;
        Until imagination brought
        a fitter welcome; but a thought
        Of that late death took all my heart for speech.
        William Butler Yeats
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          Responsabilities

          While I, that reed-throated whisperer
          Who comes at need, although not now as once
          a clear articulation in the air,
          But inwardly, surmise companions
          Beyond the fling of the dull ass's hoof
          —Ben Jonson's phrase—and find when June is come
          At Kyle-na-no under that ancient roof
          a sterner conscience and a friendlier home,
          I can forgive even that wrong of wrongs,
          Those undreamt accidents that have made me
          —Seeing that Fame has perished that long while,
          Being but a part of ancient ceremony—
          Notorious, till all my priceless things
          Are but a post the passing dogs defile.
          William Butler Yeats
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            His Dream

            I swayed upon the gaudy stern
            The butt-end of a steering-oar,
            And saw wherever I could turn
            a crowd upon a shore.
            And though I would have hushed the crowd,
            There was no mother's son but said,
            "What is the figure in a shroud
            Upon a gaudy bed?"
            And after running at the brim
            Cried out upon that thing beneath
            --It had such dignity of a limb--
            By the sweet name of Death.
            Though I'd my finger on my lip,
            What could I but take up the song?
            And running crowd and gaudy ship
            Cried out the whole night long,
            Crying amid the glittering sea,
            Naming it with the ecstatic breath,
            Because it had such dignity,
            By the sweet name of Death.
            William Butler Yeats
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              Never Give All The Heart

              Never give all the heart, for love
              Will hardly seem worth thinking of
              To passionate women if it seem
              Certain, and they never dream
              That it fades out from kiss to kiss;
              For everything that's lovely is
              but a brief, dreamy, kind of delight.
              O never give the heart outright,
              For they, for all smooth lips can say,
              Have given their hearts up to the play.
              And who could play it well enough
              If deaf and dumb and blind with love?
              He that made this knows all the cost,
              For he gave all his heart and lost.
              William Butler Yeats
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                The Fascination Of What's Difficult

                The fascination of what's difficult
                Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent
                Spontaneous joy and natural content
                Out of my heart. There's something ails our colt
                That must, as if it had not holy blood
                Nor on Olympus leaped from cloud to cloud,
                Shiver under the lash, strain, sweat and jolt
                As though it dragged road-metal. My curse on plays
                That have to be set up in fifty ways,
                On the day's war with every knave and dolt,
                Theatre business, management of men.
                I swear before the dawn comes round again
                I'll find the stable and pull out the bolt.
                William Butler Yeats
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                  Under Ben Bulben

                  Irish poets, earn your trade,
                  Sing whatever is well made,
                  Scorn the sort now growing up
                  All out of shape from toe to top,
                  Their unremembering hearts and heads
                  Base-born products of base beds.
                  William Butler Yeats
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                    The Rose Of The World

                    Bow down, archangels, in your dim abode:
                    Before you were, or any hearts to beat,
                    Weary and kind one lingered by His seat;
                    He made the world to be a grassy road
                    Before her wandering feet.
                    William Butler Yeats
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