by William Butler Yeats
Eternity is passion, girl or boy Cry at the onset of their sexual joy "For ever and for ever'; then awake Ignorant what Dramatis personae spake; A passion-driven exultant man sings out Sentences that he has… Read the rest
Category: William Butler Yeats
When Helen Lived
by William Butler Yeats
We have cried in our despair That men desert, For some trivial affair Or noisy, insolent, sport, Beauty that we have won From bitterest hours; Yet we, had we walked within Those topless towers Where Helen… Read the rest
When You Are Old
by William Butler Yeats
When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows… Read the rest
Who Goes With Fergus?
by William Butler Yeats
Who will go drive with Fergus now, And pierce the deep wood's woven shade, And dance upon the level shore? Young man, lift up your russet brow, And lift your tender eyelids, maid, And brood on… Read the rest
Why Should Not Old Men Be Mad?
by William Butler Yeats
Why should not old men be mad? Some have known a likely lad That had a sound fly-fisher's wrist Turn to a drunken journalist; A girl that knew all Dante once Live to bear children to… Read the rest
Wisdom
by William Butler Yeats
The true faith discovered was When painted panel, statuary. Glass-mosaic, window-glass, Amended what was told awry By some peasant gospeler; Swept the Sawdust from the floor Of that working-carpenter. Miracle had its playtime where In damask… Read the rest
Upon A House Shaken By The Land Agitation
by William Butler Yeats
How should the world be luckier if this house, Where passion and precision have been one Time out of mind, became too ruinous To breed the lidless eye that loves the sun? And the sweet laughing… Read the rest
Vacilliation
by William Butler Yeats
I Between extremities Man runs his course; A brand, or flaming breath. Comes to destroy All those antinomies Of day and night; The body calls it death, The heart remorse. But if these be right What… Read the rest
Veronicas Napkin
by William Butler Yeats
The Heavenly Circuit; Berenice's Hair; Tent-pole of Eden; the tent's drapery; Symbolical glory of the earth and air! The Father and His angelic hierarchy That made the magnitude and glory there Stood in the circuit of… Read the rest
What Magic Drum?
by William Butler Yeats
He holds him from desire, all but stops his breathing lest primordial Motherhood forsake his limbs, the child no longer rest, Drinking joy as it were milk upon his breast. Through light-obliterating garden foliage what magic… Read the rest