William Butler Yeats

Ireland
13 Jun 1865 // 28 Jan 1939
Poet

Quotes

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And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon
The golden apples of the sun.

The Wind Among the Reeds, 1899, The Song of Wandering, Aengus

Odor of blood when Christ was slain
Made all Platonic tolerance vain
And vain all Doric discipline.

The Tower, 1928. Two Songs from a Play

If there's no hatred in a mind
Assault and battery of the wind
Can never tear the linnet from the leaf

Michael Robartes and the Dancer, 1921. A Prayer for My Daughter
But is there any comfort to be found?
Man is in love and loves what vanishes,
What more is there to say?

The Tower, 1928. Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen
A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.

The Tower, 1928. Leda and the Swan
Land of Heart's Desire
Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood,
But joy is wisdom, time an endless song.

The Land of Heart's Desire, 1894
And many a poor man that has roved
Loved and thought himself beloved
From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes.

Michael Robartes and the Dancer, 1921. A Prayer for My Daughter
Now that my ladder's gone,
I must lie down where all the ladders start,
In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.

Last Poems,1936-1939, The Circus Animal's Desertion
I am content to live it all again
And yet again, if it be life to pitch
Into the frog-spawn of a blind man's ditch.

The Winding Stair and Other Poems, 1933. A Dialogue of Self and Soul

Hands, do what you're bid:
Bring the balloon of the mind
That bellies and drags in the wind
Into its narrow shed.

The Wild Swans at Coole 1919. The Balloon of the Mind
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