Irish poet (1865-1939)
Love's pleasure drives his love away,
The painter's brush consumes his dreams.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
"Two Songs from a Play", The Tower
The desire that is satisfied is not a great desire, nor has the shoulder used all its might that an unbreakable gate has never strained.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
"Anima Hominis", Per Amica Silentia Lunae
For those that love the world serve it in action,
Grow rich, popular, and full of influence;
And should they paint or write still is it action,
The struggle of the fly in marmalade.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
"Ego Dominus Tuus", Per Amica Silentia Lunae
The old women are most learned, but will not so readily be got to talk, for the fairies are very secretive, and much resent being talked of; and are there not many stories of old women who were nearly pinched into their graves or numbed with fairy blasts?
W. B. YEATS
introduction, Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry
This melancholy London -- I sometimes imagine that the souls of the lost are compelled to walk through its streets perpetually. One feels them passing like a whiff of air.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
letter to Katharine Tynan, Aug. 25, 1888
I loved long and long,
And grew to be out of fashion
Like an old song.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
"O Do Not Love Too Long", In the Seven Woods
It was a profound understanding of all creatures and things, a profound sympathy with passionate and lost souls, made possible in their extreme intensity by his revolt against corporeal law, and corporeal reason, which made Blake the one perfectly fit illustrator for the Inferno and the Purgatorio.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Ideas of Good and Evil
When Walt Whitman writes in seeming defiance of tradition, he needs tradition for his protection, for the butcher and the baker and the candlestick-maker grow merry over him when they meet his work by chance.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Ideas of Good and Evil
Had there been no Renaissance and no Italian influence to bring in the stories of other lands English history would, it may be, have become as important to the English imagination as the Greek Myths to the Greek imagination; and many plays by many poets would have woven it into a single story whose contours, vast as those of Greek myth, would have made living men and women seem like swallows building their nests under the architrave of some Temple of the Giants.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Ideas of Good and Evil
When all is said and done, how do we know but that our own unreason may be better than another's truth? for it has been warmed on our hearths and in our souls, and is ready for the wild bees of truth to hive in it, and make their sweet honey.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
The Celtic Twilight
I call to the mysterious one who yet
Shall walk the wet sand by the water's edge,
And look most like me, being indeed my double,
And prove of all imaginable things
The most unlike, being my anti-self,
And, standing by these characters, disclose
All that I seek; and whisper it as though
He were afraid the birds, who cry aloud
Their momentary cries before it is dawn,
Would carry it away to blasphemous men.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
"Ego Dominus Tuus", Per Amica Silentia Lunae
I agree about Shaw -- he is haunted by the mystery he flouts. He is an atheist who trembles in the haunted corridor.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
letter to George William Russell, Jul. 1, 1921
I would be -- for no knowledge is worth a straw -- Ignorant and wanton as the dawn.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
"The Dawn", The Wild Swans at Coole
Midnight has come, and the great Christ Church Bell
And many a lesser bell sound through the room;
And it is All Soul's Night,
And two long glasses brimmed with muscatel
Bubble upon the table. A ghost may come;
For it is a ghost's right,
His element is so fine
Being sharpened by his death,
To drink from the wine-breath
While our gross palates drink from the whole wine.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
"All Soul's Night"
The house ghost is usually a harmless and well-meaning creature. It is put up with as long as possible. It brings good luck to those who live with it.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
The Celtic Twilight
Though leaves are many, the root is one.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
"The Coming of Wisdom with Time", The Green Helmet and Other Poems
It's certain there is no fine thing
Since Adam's fall but needs much labouring.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
"Adam's Curse", In the Seven Woods
It is not permitted to a man, who takes up pen or chisel, to seek originality, for passion is his only business, and he cannot but mould or sing after a new fashion because no disaster is like another.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
"Anima Hominis", Per Amica Silentia Lunae
Only God, my dear,
Could love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
"For Anne Gregory", The Winding Stair and Other Poems
The creations of a great writer are little more than the moods and passions of his own heart, given surnames and Christian names, and sent to walk the earth.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
letter to the editor, Dublin Daily Express, Feb. 27, 1895