The Apparitions by William Butler Yeats
Because there is safety in derision I talked about an apparition, I took no trouble to convince, Or seem plausible to a man of sense. Distrustful of thar popular eye Whether it be bold or sly. Fifteen apparitions have I seen; The worst a coat upon a coat-hanger. I have found nothing half so good […]
That The Night Come by William Butler Yeats
She lived in storm and strife, Her soul had such desire For what proud death may bring That it could not endure The common good of life, But lived as ’twere a king That packed his marriage day With banneret and pennon, Trumpet and kettledrum, And the outrageous cannon, To bundle time away That the […]
Symbols by William Butler Yeats
A storm-beaten old watch-tower, A blind hermit rings the hour. All-destroying sword-blade still Carried by the wandering fool. Gold-sewn silk on the sword-blade, Beauty and fool together laid. ————— 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. […]
Swift’s Epitaph by William Butler Yeats
Swift has sailed into his rest; Savage indignation there Cannot lacerate his breast. Imitate him if you dare, World-besotted traveller; he Served human liberty. ————— 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 […]
Sweet Dancer by William Butler Yeats
The girl goes dancing there On the leaf-sown, new-mown, smooth Grass plot of the garden; Escaped from bitter youth, Escaped out of her crowd, Or out of her black cloud. Ah, dancer, ah, sweet dancer! If strange men come from the house To lead her away, do not say That she is happy being crazy; […]
Supernatural Songs by William Butler Yeats
I. Ribh at the Tomb of Baile and Aillinn Because you have found me in the pitch-dark night With open book you ask me what I do. Mark and digest my tale, carry it afar To those that never saw this tonsured head Nor heard this voice that ninety years have cracked. Of Baile and […]
Stream And Sun At Glendalough by William Butler Yeats
Through intricate motions ran Stream and gliding sun And all my heart seemed gay: Some stupid thing that I had done Made my attention stray. Repentance keeps my heart impure; But what am I that dare Fancy that I can Better conduct myself or have more Sense than a common man? What motion of the […]
Statistics by William Butler Yeats
‘Those Platonists are a curse,’ he said, ‘God’s fire upon the wane, A diagram hung there instead, More women born than men.’ ————— 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 […]
Spilt Milk by William Butler Yeats
We that have done and thought, That have thought and done, Must ramble, and thin out Like milk spilt on a stone. ————— 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 […]
Song For The Severed Head In `The King Of The Great Clock Tower’ by William Butler Yeats
Saddle and ride, I heard a man say, Out of Ben Bulben and Knocknarea, What says the Clock in the Great Clock Tower? All those tragic characters ride But turn from Rosses’ crawling tide, The meet’s upon the mountain-side. A slow low note and an iron bell. What brought them there so far from their […]
Solomon To Sheba by William Butler Yeats
Sang Solomon to Sheba, And kissed her dusky face, ‘All day long from mid-day We have talked in the one place, All day long from shadowless noon We have gone round and round In the narrow theme of love Like a old horse in a pound.’ To Solomon sang Sheba, Plated on his knees, ‘If […]
Solomon And The Witch by William Butler Yeats
And thus declared that Arab lady: ‘Last night, where under the wild moon On grassy mattress I had laid me, Within my arms great Solomon, I suddenly cried out in a strange tongue Not his, not mine.’ Who understood Whatever has been said, sighed, sung, Howled, miau-d, barked, brayed, belled, yelled, cried, crowed, Thereon replied: […]
Sixteen Dead Men by William Butler Yeats
O but we talked at large before The sixteen men were shot, But who can talk of give and take, What should be and what not While those dead men are loitering there To stir the boiling pot? You say that we should still the land Till Germany’s overcome; But who is there to argue […]
Shepherd And Goatherd by William Butler Yeats
Shepherd. That cry’s from the first cuckoo of the year. I wished before it ceased. Goatherd. Nor bird nor beast Could make me wish for anything this day, Being old, but that the old alone might die, And that would be against God’s providence. Let the young wish. But what has brought you here? Never […]
September 1913 by William Butler Yeats
What need you, being come to sense, But fumble in a greasy till And add the halfpence to the pence And prayer to shivering prayer, until You have dried the marrow from the bone? For men were born to pray and save: Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, It’s with O’Leary in the grave. Yet they […]
Sailing To Byzantium by William Butler Yeats
I That is no country for old men. The young In one another’s arms, birds in the trees – Those dying generations; at their song, The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas, Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unageing intellect. […]
Running To Paradise by William Butler Yeats
As I came over Windy Gap They threw a halfpenny into my cap. For I am running to paradise; And all that I need do is to wish And somebody puts his hand in the dish To throw me a bit of salted fish: And there the king is but as the beggar. My brother […]
Roger Casement by William Butler Yeats
(After reading `The Forged Casement Diaries’ by Dr. Maloney) I say that Roger Casement Did what he had to do. He died upon the gallows, But that is nothing new. Afraid they might be beaten Before the bench of Time, They turned a trick by forgery And blackened his good name. A perjurer stood ready […]
Responsibilities; Introduction by William Butler Yeats
Pardon, old fathers, if you still remain Somewhere in ear-shot for the story’s end, Old Dublin merchant “free of the ten and four” Or trading out of Galway into Spain; Old country scholar, Robert Emmet’s friend, A hundred-year-old memory to the poor; Merchant and scholar who have left me blood That has not passed through […]
The Hosting Of The Sidhe by William Butler Yeats
The host is riding from Knocknarea And over the grave of Clooth-na-Bare; Caoilte tossing his burning hair, And Niamh calling Away, come away: Empty your heart of its mortal dream. The winds awaken, the leaves whirl round, Our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound, Our breasts are heaving our eyes are agleam, Our arms […]
The Host Of The Air by William Butler Yeats
O’Driscoll drove with a song The wild duck and the drake From the tall and the tufted reeds Of the drear Hart Lake. And he saw how the reeds grew dark At the coming of night-tide, And dreamed of the long dim hair Of Bridget his bride. He heard while he sang and dreamed A […]
The Heart Of The Woman by William Butler Yeats
O what to me the little room That was brimmed up with prayer and rest; He bade me out into the gloom, And my breast lies upon his breast. O what to me my mother’s care, The house where I was safe and warm; The shadowy blossom of my hair Will hide us from the […]
The Hawk by William Butler Yeats
‘Call down the hawk from the air; Let him be hooded or caged Till the yellow eye has grown mild, For larder and spit are bare, The old cook enraged, The scullion gone wild.’ ‘I will not be clapped in a hood, Nor a cage, nor alight upon wrist, Now I have learnt to be […]
The Happy Townland by William Butler Yeats
There’s many a strong farmer Whose heart would break in two, If he could see the townland That we are riding to; Boughs have their fruit and blossom At all times of the year; Rivers are running over With red beer and brown beer. An old man plays the bagpipes In a golden and silver […]
The Gyres by William Butler Yeats
The gyres! the gyres! Old Rocky Face, look forth; Things thought too long can be no longer thought, For beauty dies of beauty, worth of worth, And ancient lineaments are blotted out. Irrational streams of blood are staining earth; Empedocles has thrown all things about; Hector is dead and there’s a light in Troy; We […]
The Grey Rock by William Butler Yeats
Poets with whom I learned my trade. Companions of the Cheshire Cheese, Here’s an old story I’ve remade, Imagining ‘twould better please Your cars than stories now in fashion, Though you may think I waste my breath Pretending that there can be passion That has more life in it than death, And though at bottling […]
The Ghost Of Roger Casement by William Butler Yeats
O what has made that sudden noise? What on the threshold stands? It never crossed the sea because John Bull and the sea are friends; But this is not the old sea Nor this the old seashore. What gave that roar of mockery, That roar in the sea’s roar? The ghost of Roger Casement Is […]
The Fool By The Roadside by William Butler Yeats
(version of The Hero, The Girl And The Fool) When all works that have From cradle run to grave From grave to cradle run instead; When thoughts that a fool Has wound upon a spool Are but loose thread, are but loose thread; When cradle and spool are past And I mere shade at last […]
The Folly Of Being Comforted by William Butler Yeats
One that is ever kind said yesterday: ‘Your well-beloved’s hair has threads of grey, And little shadows come about her eyes; Time can but make it easier to be wise Though now it seems impossible, and so All that you need is patience.’ Heart cries, ‘No, I have not a crumb of comfort, not a […]
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 Falling Of The Leaves by William Butler Yeats
Autumn is over the long leaves that love us, And over the mice in the barley sheaves; Yellow the leaves of the rowan above us, And yellow the wet wild-strawberry leaves. The hour of the waning of love has beset us, And weary and worn are our sad souls now; Let us patt, ere the […]
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 Double Vision Of Michael Robartes by William Butler Yeats
I On the grey rock of Cashel the mind’s eye Has called up the cold spirits that are born When the old moon is vanished from the sky And the new still hides her horn. Under blank eyes and fingers never still The particular is pounded till it is man. When had I my own […]
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 […]