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The years like great black oxen tread the world, and God, the herdsman goads them on behind, and I am broken by their passing feet.

William Butler Yeats

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William Butler Yeats
Age: 73 †
Born: 1865
Born: June 13
Died: 1939
Died: January 28
Astrologer
Mystic
Playwright
Poet
Politician
Writer
Scrooby
Nottinghamshire
W. B. Yeats
William Yeats
W.B. Yeats
Time
God
Like
Behinds
World
Broken
Goads
Behind
Oxen
Feet
Yeast
Black
Tread
Great
Passings
Years
Passing

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When I think of all the books I have read, and of the wise words I have heard spoken, and of the anxiety I have given to parents and grandparents, and of the hopes that I have had, all life weighed in the scales of my own life seems to me a preparation for something that never happens.
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And I will find some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,/ Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings.
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It was my first meeting with a philosophy that confirmed my vague speculations and seemed at once logical and boundless.
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I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping...I hear it in the deep heart's core.
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Was it for this the wild geese spread The gray wing upon every tide For this that all that blood was shed, For this. Edward Fitzgerald died, And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone, All that delirium of the brave? Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, It's with O'Leary in the grave.
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All hatred driven hence, The soul recovers radical innocence And learns at last that it is self-delighting, Self-appeasing, self-affrighting, And that its own sweet will is Heaven's will
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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.
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I thought of rhyme alone, For rhyme can beat a measure out of trouble And make the daylight sweet once more.
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I whispered, 'I am too young,' and then, 'I am old enough' wherefore I threw a penny to find out if I might love.
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And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?
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It's certain that fine women eat A crazy salad with their meat.
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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.
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Never shall a young man, Thrown into despair By those great honey-coloured Ramparts at your ear, Love you for yourself alone And not your yellow hair.
William Butler Yeats
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Though leaves are many, the root is one.
William Butler Yeats
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On limestone quarried near the spot By his command these words are cut: Cast a cold eye On life, on death. Horseman, pass by!
William Butler Yeats
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Thought is a garment and the soul's a bride That cannot in that trash and tinsel hide: Hatred of God may bring the soul to God.
William Butler Yeats
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Imagining in excited reverie That the future years had come, Dancing to a frenzied drum, Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.
William Butler Yeats
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Englishmen are babes in philosophy and so prefer faction-fighting to the labour of its unfamiliar thought.
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I pray-for fashion's word is out And prayer comes round again- That I may seem, though I die old, A foolish, passionate man.
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While Michael Angelo's Sistine roof, His Morning and his Night disclose How sinew that has been pulled tight, Or it may be loosened in repose, Can rule by supernatural right Yet be but sinew.
William Butler Yeats