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Poetries 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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Reconciliation

Some may have blamed you that you took away
The verses that could move them on the day
When, the ears being deafened, the sight of the eyes blind
With lightning, you went from me, and I could find
Nothing to make a song about but kings,
Helmets, and swords, and half-forgotten things
That were like memories of you--but now
We'll out, for the world lives as long ago;
And while we're in our laughing, weeping fit,
Hurl helmets, crowns, and swords into the pit.
But, dear, cling close to me; since you were gone,
My barren thoughts have chilled me to the bone.
William Butler Yeats
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    Against Unworthy Praise

    O heart, be at peace, because
    Nor knave nor dolt can break
    What's not for their applause
    Being for a woman's sake.
    Enough if the work has seemed,
    So did she your strength renew,
    a dream that a lion had dreamed
    Till the wilderness cried aloud,
    a secret between you two,
    Between the proud and the proud.
    What, still you would have their praise!
    But here's a haughtier text,
    The labyrinth of her days
    That her own strangeness perplexed;
    And how what her dreaming gave
    Earned slander, ingratitude,
    From self-same dolt and knave;
    Aye, and worse wrong than these.
    Yet she, singing upon her road,
    Half lion, half child, is at peace.
    William Butler Yeats
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      A Last Confession

      I gave what other women gave
      That stepped out of their clothes.
      But when this soul, its body off,
      Naked to naked goes,
      He it has found shall find therein
      What none other knows,
      And give his own and take his own
      And rule in his own right;
      And though it loved in misery
      Close and cling so tight,
      There's not a bird of day that dare
      Extinguish that delight.
      William Butler Yeats
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        The Lake Isle Of Innisfree

        I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
        And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
        Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
        And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
        And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow
        Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings.
        William Butler Yeats
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          Sailing To Byzantium

          That is no country for old men. The young
          In one another's arms, birds in the trees
          —Those dying generations—at their song,
          The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
          Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
          Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
          Caught in that sensual music all neglect
          Monuments of unaging intellect.
          William Butler Yeats
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            A Prayerfor My Daughter

            May she be granted beauty and yet not
            Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught,
            Or hers before a looking-glass, for such,
            Being made beautiful overmuch,
            Consider beauty a sufficient end,
            Lose natural kindness and maybe
            The heart-revealing intimacy
            That chooses right, and never find a friend.
            William Butler Yeats
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              Lines Written In Dejection

              When have I last looked on
              The round green eyes and the long wavering bodies
              Of the dark leopards of the moon?
              All the wild witches, those most noble ladies,
              For all their broom-sticks and their tears,
              Their angry tears, are gone.
              William Butler Yeats
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                Adam's Curse

                It's certain there is no fine thing
                Since Adam's fall but needs much labouring.
                There have been lovers who thought love should be
                So much compounded of high courtesy
                That they would sigh and quote with learned looks
                Precedents out of beautiful old books;
                Yet now it seems an idle trade enough.
                William Butler Yeats
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                  The Winding Stair

                  Is Sato's ancient blade, still as it was,
                  Still razor-keen, still like a looking-glass
                  Unspotted by the centuries;
                  That flowering, silken, old embroidery, torn
                  From some court-lady's dress and round
                  The wodden scabbard bound and wound
                  Can, tattered, still protect, faded adorn.
                  William Butler Yeats
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