William Butler Yeats Quotes
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Death and life were not Till man made up the whole, Made lock, stock and barrel Out of his bitter soul
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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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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 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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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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Tis the eternal law, That first in beauty should be first in might.
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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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Being young you have not known The fool's triumph, nor yet Love lost as soon as won, Nor the best labourer dead And all the sheaves to bind.
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Our own acts are isolated and one act does not buy absolution for another.
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What do we know but that we face one another in this place?
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The soul of man is of the imperishable substance of the stars!
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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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To sit beside the board and drink good wine And watch the turf smoke coiling from the fire And feel content and wisdom in your heart, This is the best of life; when we are young We long to tread a way none trod before, But find the excellent old way through love And through the care of children to the hour Forbidding Fate and Time and Change goodbye.
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What made us dream that he could comb gray hair?
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When two close kindred meet What better than call a dance?.
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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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What the world's million lips are searching for, must be substantial somewhere.
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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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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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Hurrah for revolution and cannon come again! The beggars have changed places, but the lash goes on.
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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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People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end by starving the best part of the mind.
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Both nuns and mothers worship images, But those the candles light are not as those That animate a mother's reveries, But keep a marble or a bronze repose.
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What can be shown? What true love be? All could be known or shown If Time were but gone.