The Fisherman by William Butler Yeats
Although I can see him still. The freckled man who goes To a grey place on a hill In grey Connemara clothes At dawn to cast his flies, It’s long since I began To call up to the eyes This wise and simple man. All day I’d looked in the face What I had hoped […]
The Fish by William Butler Yeats
Although you hide in the ebb and flow Of the pale tide when the moon has set, The people of coming days will know About the casting out of my net, And how you have leaped times out of mind Over the little silver cords, And think that you were hard and unkind, And blame […]
The Fiddler Of Dooney by William Butler Yeats
When I play on my fiddle in Dooney. Folk dance like a wave of the sea; My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet, My brother in Mocharabuiee. I passed my brother and cousin: They read in their books of prayer; I read in my book of songs I bought at the Sligo fair. When we come […]
The Fascination Of What’s Difficult by William Butler Yeats
The fascination of what’s difficult Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent Spontaneous joy and natural content Out of my heart. There’s something ails our colt That must, as if it had not holy blood Nor on Olympus leaped from cloud to cloud, Shiver under the lash, strain, sweat and jolt As […]
The Everlasting Voices by William Butler Yeats
O sweet everlasting Voices, be still; Go to the guards of the heavenly fold And bid them wander obeying your will, Flame under flame, till Time be no more; Have you not heard that our hearts are old, That you call in birds, in wind on the hill, In shaken boughs, in tide on the […]
The Dolls by William Butler Yeats
A doll in the doll-maker’s house Looks at the cradle and bawls: ‘That is an insult to us.’ But the oldest of all the dolls, Who had seen, being kept for show, Generations of his sort, Out-screams the whole shelf: ‘Although There’s not a man can report Evil of this place, The man and the […]
The Delphic Oracle Upon Plotinus by William Butler Yeats
Behold that great Plotinus swim, Buffeted by such seas; Bland Rhadamanthus beckons him, But the Golden Race looks dim, Salt blood blocks his eyes. Scattered on the level grass Or winding through the grove plato there and Minos pass, There stately Pythagoras And all the choir of Love. ————— The End And that’s the End […]
The Dawn by William Butler Yeats
I would be ignorant as the dawn That has looked down On that old queen measuring a town With the pin of a brooch, Or on the withered men that saw From their pedantic Babylon The careless planets in their courses, The stars fade out where the moon comes. And took their tablets and did […]
The Dancer At Cruachan And Cro-Patrick by William Butler Yeats
I, proclaiming that there is Among birds or beasts or men One that is perfect or at peace. Danced on Cruachan’s windy plain, Upon Cro-patrick sang aloud; All that could run or leap or swim Whether in wood, water or cloud, Acclaiming, proclaiming, declaiming Him. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem […]
The Curse Of Cromwell by William Butler Yeats
You ask what; I have found, and far and wide I go: Nothing but Cromwell’s house and Cromwell’s murderous crew, The lovers and the dancers are beaten into the clay, And the tall men and the swordsmen and the horsemen, where are they? And there is an old beggar wandering in his pride; – His […]
The Crazed Moon by William Butler Yeats
Crazed through much child-bearing The moon is staggering in the sky; Moon-struck by the despairing Glances of her wandering eye We grope, and grope in vain, For children born of her pain. Children dazed or dead! When she in all her virginal pride First trod on the mountain’s head What stir ran through the countryside […]
The Coming Of Wisdom With Time by William Butler Yeats
Though leaves are many, the root is one; Through all the lying days of my youth I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun; Now I may wither into the truth. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry Monster — the ultimate […]
The Cold Heaven by William Butler Yeats
Suddenly I saw the cold and rook-delighting heaven That seemed as though ice burned and was but the more ice, And thereupon imagination and heart were driven So wild that every casual thought of that and this Vanished, and left but memories, that should be out of season With the hot blood of youth, of […]
The Cloak, The Boat And The Shoes by William Butler Yeats
‘What do you make so fair and bright?’ ‘I make the cloak of Sorrow: O lovely to see in all men’s sight Shall be the cloak of Sorrow, In all men’s sight.’ ‘What do you build with sails for flight?’ ‘I build a boat for Sorrow: O swift on the seas all day and night […]
The Circus Animals’ Desertion by William Butler Yeats
I I sought a theme and sought for it in vain, I sought it daily for six weeks or so. Maybe at last, being but a broken man, I must be satisfied with my heart, although Winter and summer till old age began My circus animals were all on show, Those stilted boys, that burnished […]
The Choice by William Butler Yeats
The intellect of man is forced to choose perfection of the life, or of the work, And if it take the second must refuse A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark. When all that story’s finished, what’s the news? In luck or out the toil has left its mark: That old perplexity an empty purse, […]
The Chambermaid’s First Song by William Butler Yeats
How came this ranger Now sunk in rest, Stranger with strangcr. On my cold breast? What’s left to Sigh for? Strange night has come; God’s love has hidden him Out of all harm, Pleasure has made him Weak as a worm. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems […]
The Chambermaid’s Second Song by William Butler Yeats
From pleasure of the bed, Dull as a worm, His rod and its butting head Limp as a worm, His spirit that has fled Blind as a worm. ————— 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. […]
The Peacock by William Butler Yeats
What’s riches to him That has made a great peacock With the pride of his eye? The wind-beaten, stone-grey, And desolate Three Rock Would nourish his whim. Live he or die Amid wet rocks and heather, His ghost will be gay Adding feather to feather For the pride of his eye. ————— The End And […]
The O’Rahilly by William Butler Yeats
Sing of the O’Rahilly, Do not deny his right; Sing a ‘the’ before his name; Allow that he, despite All those learned historians, Established it for good; He wrote out that word himself, He christened himself with blood. How goes the weather? Sing of the O’Rahilly That had such little sense He told Pearse and […]
The Old Men Admiring Themselves In The Water by William Butler Yeats
I heard the old, old men say, ‘Everything alters, And one by one we drop away.’ They had hands like claws, and their knees Were twisted like the old thorn-trees By the waters. I heard the old, old men say, ‘All that’s beautiful drifts away Like the waters.’ ————— The End And that’s the End […]
The Old Age Of Queen Maeve by William Butler Yeats
A certain poet in outlandish clothes Gathered a crowd in some Byzantine lane, Talked1 of his country and its people, sang To some stringed instrument none there had seen, A wall behind his back, over his head A latticed window. His glance went up at time As though one listened there, and his voice sank […]
The Nineteenth Century And After by William Butler Yeats
Though the great song return no more There’s keen delight in what we have: The rattle of pebbles on the shore Under the receding wave. ————— 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 New Faces by William Butler Yeats
If you, that have grown old, were the first dead, Neither catalpa tree nor scented lime Should hear my living feet, nor would I tread Where we wrought that shall break the teeth of Time. Let the new faces play what tricks they will In the old rooms; night can outbalance day, Our shadows rove […]
The Municipal Gallery Revisited by William Butler Yeats
I Around me the images of thirty years: An ambush; pilgrims at the water-side; Casement upon trial, half hidden by the bars, Guarded; Griffith staring in hysterical pride; Kevin O’Higgins’ countenance that wears A gentle questioning look that cannot hide A soul incapable of remorse or rest; A revolutionary soldier kneeling to be blessed; II […]
The Moods by William Butler Yeats
Time drops in decay, Like a candle burnt out, And the mountains and woods Have their day, have their day; What one in the rout Of the fire-born moods Has fallen away? ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry Monster — the ultimate […]
The Meditation Of The Old Fisherman by William Butler Yeats
You waves, though you dance by my feet like children at play, Though you glow and you glance, though you purr and you dart; In the Junes that were warmer than these are, the waves were more gay, When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart. The herring are not in […]
The Magi by William Butler Yeats
Now as at all times I can see in the mind’s eye, In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones, And all their helms of Silver hovering side by side, And all their eyes still fixed, […]
The Living Beauty by William Butler Yeats
I bade, because the wick and oil are spent And frozen are the channels of the blood, My discontented heart to draw content From beauty that is cast out of a mould In bronze, or that in dazzling marble appears, Appears, but when wc have gone is gone again, Being more indifferent to our solitude […]
The Lake Isle Of Innisfree by William Butler Yeats
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made: Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils […]
The Lady’s Second Song by William Butler Yeats
What sort of man is coming To lie between your feet? What matter, we are but women. Wash; make your body sweet; I have cupboards of dried fragrance. I can strew the sheet. The Lord have mercy upon us. He shall love my soul as though Body were not at all, He shall love your […]
The Lady’s First Song by William Butler Yeats
I turn round Like a dumb beast in a show. Neither know what I am Nor where I go, My language beaten Into one name; I am in love And that is my shame. What hurts the soul My soul adores, No better than a beast Upon all fours. ————— The End And that’s the […]
The Indian Upon God by William Butler Yeats
I passed along the water’s edge below the humid trees, My spirit rocked in evening light, the rushes round my knees, My spirit rocked in sleep and sighs; and saw the moor-fowl pace All dripping on a grassy slope, and saw them cease to chase Each other round in circles, and heard the eldest speak: […]
The Indian To His Love by William Butler Yeats
The island dreams under the dawn And great boughs drop tranquillity; The peahens dance on a smooth lawn, A parrot sways upon a tree, Raging at his own image in the enamelled sea. Here we will moor our lonely ship And wander ever with woven hands, Murmuring softly lip to lip, Along the grass, along […]
To A Child Dancing In The Wind by William Butler Yeats
Dance there upon the shore; What need have you to care For wind or water’s roar? And tumble out your hair That the salt drops have wet; 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. […]
Three Songs To The One Burden by William Butler Yeats
I The Roaring Tinker if you like, But Mannion is my name, And I beat up the common sort And think it is no shame. The common breeds the common, A lout begets a lout, So when I take on half a score I knock their heads about. From mountain to mountain ride the fierce […]
These Are The Clouds by William Butler Yeats
These are the clouds about the fallen sun, The majesty that shuts his burning eye: The weak lay hand on what the strong has done, Till that be tumbled that was lifted high And discord follow upon unison, And all things at one common level lie. And therefore, friend, if your great race were run […]
The Withering Of The Boughs by William Butler Yeats
I cried when the moon was mutmuring to the birds: ‘Let peewit call and curlew cry where they will, I long for your merry and tender and pitiful words, For the roads are unending, and there is no place to my mind.’ The honey-pale moon lay low on the sleepy hill, And I fell asleep […]
The Wheel by William Butler Yeats
Through winter-time we call on spring, And through the spring on summer call, And when abounding hedges ring Declare that winter’s best of all; And after that there s nothing good Because the spring-time has not come – Nor know that what disturbs our blood Is but its longing for the tomb. ————— The End […]
The Travail Of Passion by William Butler Yeats
When the flaming lute-thronged angelic door is wide; When an immortal passion breathes in mortal clay; Our hearts endure the scourge, the plaited thorns, the way Crowded with bitter faces, the wounds in palm and side, The vinegar-heavy sponge, the flowers by Kedron stream; We will bend down and loosen our hair over you, That […]