The Rose Of Battle by William Butler Yeats
Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World! The tall thought-woven sails, that flap unfurled Above the tide of hours, trouble the air, And God’s bell buoyed to be the water’s care; While hushed from fear, or loud with hope, a band With blown, spray-dabbled hair gather at hand, Turn if you may from […]
The Results Of Thought by William Butler Yeats
Acquaintance; companion; One dear brilliant woman; The best-endowed, the elect, All by their youth undone, All, all, by that inhuman Bitter glory wrecked. But I have straightened out Ruin, wreck and wrack; I toiled long years and at length Came to so deep a thought I can summon back All their wholesome strength. What images […]
The Realists by William Butler Yeats
Hope that you may understand! What can books of men that wive In a dragon-guarded land, paintings of the dolphin-drawn Sea-nymphs in their pearly wagons Do, but awake a hope to live That had gone With the dragons? ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and […]
The Poet Pleads With The Elemental Powers by William Butler Yeats
The Powers whose name and shape no living creature knows Have pulled the Immortal Rose; And though the Seven Lights bowed in their dance and wept, The Polar Dragon slept, His heavy rings uncoiled from glimmering deep to deep: When will he wake from sleep? Great Powers of falling wave and wind and windy fire, […]
The Pity Of Love by William Butler Yeats
A pity beyond all telling Is hid in the heart of love: The folk who are buying and selling, The clouds on their journey above, The cold wet winds ever blowing, And the shadowy hazel grove Where mouse-grey waters are flowing, Threaten the head that I love. ————— The End And that’s the End of […]
The Pilgrim by William Butler Yeats
I fasted for some forty days on bread and buttermilk, For passing round the bottle with girls in rags or silk, In country shawl or Paris cloak, had put my wits astray, And what’s the good of women, for all that they can say Is fol de rol de rolly O. Round Lough Derg’s holy […]
The Phases Of The Moon by William Butler Yeats
An old man cocked his car upon a bridge; He and his friend, their faces to the South, Had trod the uneven road. Their hoots were soiled, Their Connemara cloth worn out of shape; They had kept a steady pace as though their beds, Despite a dwindling and late-risen moon, Were distant still. An old […]
The People by William Butler Yeats
‘What have I earned for all that work,’ I said, ‘For all that I have done at my own charge? The daily spite of this unmannerly town, Where who has served the most is most defaned, The reputation of his lifetime lost Between the night and morning. I might have lived, And you know well […]
Youth And Age by William Butler Yeats
Much did I rage when young, Being by the world oppressed, But now with flattering tongue It speeds the parting guest. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry Monster — the ultimate repository of world poetry. Poetry Monster — the multilingual library of […]
Young Man’s Song by William Butler Yeats
‘She will change,’ I cried. ‘Into a withered crone.’ The heart in my side, That so still had lain, In noble rage replied And beat upon the bone: ‘Uplift those eyes and throw Those glances unafraid: She would as bravely show Did all the fabric fade; No withered crone I saw Before the world was […]
Words by William Butler Yeats
I had this thought a while ago, ‘My darling cannot understand What I have done, or what would do In this blind bitter land.’ And I grew weary of the sun Until my thoughts cleared up again, Remembering that the best I have done Was done to make it plain; That every year I have […]
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 gospeller; Swept the Sawdust from the floor Of that working-carpenter. Miracle had its playtime where In damask clothed and on a seat Chryselephantine, cedar-boarded, His majestic Mother sat Stitching at a purple hoarded That He might […]
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 a dunce; A Helen of social welfare dream, Climb on a wagonette to scream. Some think it a matter […]
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 hopes and fear no more. And no more turn aside and brood Upon love’s bitter mystery; For Fergus rules […]
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 deep; How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But […]
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 waked with her boy, Had given but as the rest Of the men and women of Troy, A word […]
What Was Lost by William Butler Yeats
I sing what was lost and dread what was won, I walk in a battle fought over again, My king a lost king, and lost soldiers my men; Feet to the Rising and Setting may run, They always beat on the same small stone. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry […]
What Then? by William Butler Yeats
His chosen comrades thought at school He must grow a famous man; He thought the same and lived by rule, All his twenties crammed with toil; ‘What then?’ sang Plato’s ghost. ‘What then?’ Everything he wrote was read, After certain years he won Sufficient money for his need, Friends that have been friends indeed; ‘What […]
Veronica’s Napkin by William Butler Yeats
The Heavenly Circuit; Berenice’s Hair; Tent-pole of Eden; the tent’s drapery; Symbolical glory of thc earth and air! The Father and His angelic hierarchy That made the magnitude and glory there Stood in the circuit of a needle’s eye. Some found a different pole, and where it stood A pattern on a napkin dipped in […]
Vacillation 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 is joy? II A tree there is that from its topmost bough Is half all glittering flame and half […]
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 eagle thoughts that grow Where wings have memory of wings, and all That comes of the best knit to […]
Upon A Dying Lady by William Butler Yeats
I Her Courtesy With the old kindness, the old distinguished grace, She lies, her lovely piteous head amid dull red hair propped upon pillows, rouge on the pallor of her face. She would not have us sad because she is lying there, And when she meets our gaze her eyes are laughter-lit, Her speech a […]
Under The Round Tower by William Butler Yeats
‘Although I’d lie lapped up in linen A deal I’d sweat and little earn If I should live as live the neighbours,’ Cried the beggar, Billy Byrne; ‘Stretch bones till the daylight come On great-grandfather’s battered tomb.’ Upon a grey old battered tombstone In Glendalough beside the stream Where the O’Byrnes and Byrnes are buried, […]
Under Saturn by William Butler Yeats
Do not because this day I have grown saturnine Imagine that lost love, inseparable from my thought Because I have no other youth, can make me pine; For how should I forget the wisdom that you brought, The comfort that you made? Although my wits have gone On a fantastic ride, my horse’s flanks are […]
Two Years Later by William Butler Yeats
Has no one said those daring Kind eyes should be more learn’d? Or warned you how despairing The moths are when they are burned? I could have warned you; but you are young, So we speak a different tongue. O you will take whatever’s offered And dream that all the world’s a friend, Suffer as […]
Two Songs Of A Fool by William Butler Yeats
I A speckled cat and a tame hare Eat at my hearthstone And sleep there; And both look up to me alone For learning and defence As I look up to Providence. I start out of my sleep to think Some day I may forget Their food and drink; Or, the house door left unshut, […]
Two Songs From A Play by William Butler Yeats
I I saw a staring virgin stand Where holy Dionysus died, And tear the heart out of his side. And lay the heart upon her hand And bear that beating heart away; Of Magnus Annus at the spring, As though God’s death were but a play. Another Troy must rise and set, Another lineage feed […]
Towards Break Of Day by William Butler Yeats
Was it the double of my dream The woman that by me lay Dreamed, or did we halve a dream Under the first cold gleam of day? I thought: “There is a waterfall Upon Ben Bulben side That all my childhood counted dear; Were I to travel far and wide I could not find a […]
Tom The Lunatic by William Butler Yeats
Sang old Tom the lunatic That sleeps under the canopy: ‘What change has put my thoughts astray And eyes that had s-o keen a sight? What has turned to smoking wick Nature’s pure unchanging light? ‘Huddon and Duddon and Daniel O’Leary. Holy Joe, the beggar-man, Wenching, drinking, still remain Or sing a penance on the […]
Tom O’Roughley by William Butler Yeats
‘Though logic-choppers rule the town, And every man and maid and boy Has marked a distant object down, An aimless joy is a pure joy,’ Or so did Tom O’Roughley say That saw the surges running by. ‘And wisdom is a butterfly And not a gloomy bird of prey. ‘If little planned is little sinned […]
To The Rose Upon The Rood Of Time by William Butler Yeats
Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days! Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways: Cuchulain battling with the bitter tide; The Druid, grey, wood-nurtured, quiet-eyed, Who cast round Fergus dreams, and ruin untold; And thine own sadness, where of stars, grown old In dancing silver-sandalled on the sea, Sing in […]
To Dorothy Wellesley by William Butler Yeats
Stretch towards the moonless midnight of the trees, As though that hand could reach to where they stand, And they but famous old upholsteries Delightful to the touch; tighten that hand As though to draw them closer yet. Rammed full Of that most sensuous silence of the night (For since the horizon’s bought strange dogs […]
To Be Carved On A Stone At Thoor Ballylee by William Butler Yeats
I, the poet William Yeats, With old mill boards and sea-green slates, And smithy work from the Gort forge, Restored this tower for my wife George; And may these characters remain When all is ruin once again. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. […]
To A Young Girl by William Butler Yeats
My dear, my dear, I know More than another What makes your heart beat so; Not even your own mother Can know it as I know, Who broke my heart for her When the wild thought, That she denies And has forgot, Set all her blood astir And glittered in her eyes. ————— The End […]
To A Young Beauty by William Butler Yeats
Dear fellow-artist, why so free With every sort of company, With every Jack and Jill? Choose your companions from the best; Who draws a bucket with the rest Soon topples down the hill. You may, that mirror for a school, Be passionate, not bountiful As common beauties may, Who were not born to keep in […]
To A Poet, Who Would Have Me Praise Certain Bad Poets, Imitators Of His And Mine by William Butler Yeats
You say, as I have often given tongue In praise of what another’s said or sung, ‘Twere politic to do the like by these; But was there ever dog that praised his fleas? ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry Monster — the […]
To A Friend Whose Work Has Come To Nothing by William Butler Yeats
Now all the truth is out, Be secret and take defeat From any brazen throat, For how can you compete, Being honour bred, with one Who, were it proved he lies, Were neither shamed in his own Nor in his neighbours’ eyes? Bred to a harder thing Than Triumph, turn away And like a laughing […]
The Hecatomb to his Mistress by John Cleveland
Hecatomb The Hecatomb to his Mistress. Be dumb, you beggars of the rhyming trade, Geld your loose wits and let your Muse be spayed. Charge not the parish with the bastard phrase Of balm, elixir, both the Indias, Of shrine, saint, sacrilege, and such as these Expressions common as your mistresses. Hence, […]