Author: William Butler Yeats

I, proclaiming that there is Among birds or beasts or men One that is perfect or at peace. Danced on […]

I Around me the images of thirty years: An ambush; pilgrims at the water-side; Casement upon trial, half hidden by […]

‘Though logic-choppers rule the town, And every man and maid and boy Has marked a distant object down, An aimless […]

Time drops in decay, Like a candle burnt out, And the mountains and woods Have their day, have their day; […]

Though nurtured like the sailing moon In beauty’s murderous brood, She walked awhile and blushed awhile And on my pathway […]

‘Would it were anything but merely voice!’ The No King cried who after that was King, Because he had not […]

Dear fellow-artist, why so free With every sort of company, With every Jack and Jill? Choose your companions from the […]

I Between extremities Man runs his course; A brand, or flaming breath. Comes to destroy All those antinomies Of day […]

Pour wine and dance if manhood still have pride, Bring roses if the rose be yet in bloom; The cataract […]

Bolt and bar the shutter, For the foul winds blow: Our minds are at their best this night, And I […]

On Cruachan’s plain slept he That must sing in a rhyme What most could shake his soul: ‘The stallion Eternity […]

Who talks of Plato’s spindle; What set it whirling round? Eternity may dwindle, Time is unwound, Dan and Jerry Lout […]

For certain minutes at the least That crafty demon and that loud beast That plague me day and night Ran […]

Sang old Tom the lunatic That sleeps under the canopy: ‘What change has put my thoughts astray And eyes that […]

I am worn out with dreams; A weather-worn, marble triton Among the streams; And all day long I look Upon […]

My dear, my dear, I know More than another What makes your heart beat so; Not even your own mother […]

His chosen comrades thought at school He must grow a famous man; He thought the same and lived by rule, […]

Far-off, most secret, and inviolate Rose, Enfold me in my hour of hours; where those Who sought thee in the […]

O thought, fly to her when the end of day Awakens an old memory, and say, ‘Your strength, that is […]

I bade, because the wick and oil are spent And frozen are the channels of the blood, My discontented heart […]