William Butler Yeats Quotes
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If a poet interprets a poem of his own he limits its suggestibility.
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I heard the old, old, men say 'all that's beautiful drifts away, like the waters.'
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Pale brows, still hands and dim hair, I had a beautiful friend And dreamed that the old despair Would end in love in the end.
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And there's a score of duchesses, surpassing womankind, Or who have found a painter to make them so for pay And smooth out stain and blemish with the elegance of his mind: I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their day.
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Evil comes to us men of imagination wearing as its mask all the virtues.
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Although our love is waning, let us stand by the lone border of the lake once more, together in that hour of gentleness. When the poor tired child, passion, falls asleep.
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Shakespearean fish swam the sea, far away from land; Romantic fish swam in nets coming to the hand.
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It is so many years before one can believe enough in what one feels even to know what the feeling is
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Cuchulain stirred, Stared on the horses of the sea, and heard The cars of battle and his own name cried; And fought with the invulnerable tide.
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on the instant clamorous eaves, A climbing moon upon an empty sky, And all that lamentation of the leaves, Could but compose man's image and his cry.
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I summon to the winding ancient stair; Set all your mind upon the steep ascent
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The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time.
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I thought of rhyme alone, For rhyme can beat a measure out of trouble And make the daylight sweet once more.
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How can we know the dancer from the dance?
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What can be explained is not poetry.
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A lonely impulse of delight
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It is love that I am seeking for, But of a beautiful, unheard-of kind That is not in the world.
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Where the wave of moonlight glosses The dim gray sands with light, Far off by furthest Rosses We foot it all the night, Weaving olden dances, Mingling hands and mingling glances Till the moon has taken flight; To and fro we leap And chase the frothy bubbles, While the world is full of troubles And is anxious in its sleep. . . .
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From our birthday, until we die, Is but the winking of an eye.
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Lionel Johnson comes the first to mind, That loved his learning better than mankind, Though courteous to the worst; much falling he Brooded upon sanctity.
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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 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.
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It seems to me that love, if it is fine, is essentially a discipline.
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Because this age and the next age Engender in the ditch, No man can know a happy man From any passing wretch, If Folly link with Elegance No man knows which is which.
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O heart! O heart! if she'd but turn her head You'd know the folly of being comforted.