William Butler Yeats Quotes
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The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told; I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart.
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Grant me an old man's frenzy, Myself must I remake Till I am Timon and Lear Or that William Blake Who beat upon the wall Till Truth obeyed his call.
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He Who is wrapped in purple robes, With planets in His care, Had pity on the least of things Asleep upon a chair.
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And learn that the best thing is To change my loves while dancing And pay but a kiss for a kiss.
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May we two stand, When we are dead, beyond the setting suns, A little from other shades apart, With mingling hair, and play upon one lute.
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Tis the eternal law, That first in beauty should be first in might.
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I sat on cushioned otter-skin: My word was law from Ith to Emain, And shook at Invar Amargin The hearts of the world-troubling seamen, And drove tumult and war away.
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I have no question: It is enough, I know what fixed the station Of star and cloud. And knowing all, I cry. . . .
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There where the course is, Delight makes all of the one mind, The riders upon the galloping horses, The crowd that closes in behind.
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I had a chair at every hearth, When no one turned to see, With 'Look at that old fellow there, 'And who may he be?
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Our own acts are isolated and one act does not buy absolution for another.
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I can forgive even that wrong of wrongs, Those undreamt accidents that have made me Seeing that Fame has perished this long while, Being but a part of ancient ceremony Notorious, till all my priceless things Are but a post the passing dogs defile.
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What do we know but that we face one another in this place?
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I would have touched it like a child But knew my finger could but have touched Cold stone and water. I grew wild, Even accusing heaven because It had set down among its laws: Nothing that we love over-much Is ponderable to our touch.
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What the world's million lips are searching for, must be substantial somewhere.
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What made us dream that he could comb gray hair?
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And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?
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Hurrah for revolution and cannon come again! The beggars have changed places, but the lash goes on.
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Imagining in excited reverie That the future years had come, Dancing to a frenzied drum, Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.
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What can be shown? What true love be? All could be known or shown If Time were but gone.
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And I will find some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,/ Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings.
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to be choked with hate May well be of all evil chances chief.
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rhetoric is will doing the work of imagination.
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How could passion run so deep Had I never thought That the crime of being born Blackens all our lot?