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Even when the poet seems most himself . . . he is never the bundle of accident and incoherence that sits down to breakfast he has been reborn as an idea, something intended, complete.

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
Never
Accidents
Incoherence
Complete
Bundle
Poet
Bundles
Idea
Reborn
Seems
Sits
Ideas
Intended
Even
Accident
Something
Breakfast

More quotes by William Butler Yeats

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What made us dream that he could comb gray hair?
William Butler Yeats
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All the wild-witches, those most notable ladies For all their broom-sticks and their tears, Their angry tears, are gone.
William Butler Yeats
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Words alone are certain good.
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There are a few of the open-air spirits the more domestic of their tribe gather within-doors, plentiful as swallows under southern eaves.
William Butler Yeats
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If soul my look and body touch, Which is the more blest?
William Butler Yeats
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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.
William Butler Yeats
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Come away, O human child: To the waters and the wild with a fairy, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
William Butler Yeats
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All that could run or leap or swim Whether in wood, water or cloud, Acclaiming, proclaiming, declaiming Him.
William Butler Yeats
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Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enameling To keep a drowsy Emperor awake Or set upon a golden bough to sing To lords and ladies of Byzantium Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
William Butler Yeats
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Lionel Johnson comes the first to mind, That loved his learning better than mankind, Though courteous to the worst much falling he Brooded upon sanctity.
William Butler Yeats
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Chaunt in his ear delusions magical, That he may fight the horses of the sea. The Druids took them to their mystery, And chaunted for three days.
William Butler Yeats
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But stories that live longest Are sung above the glass, And Parnell loved his country And Parnell loved his lass.
William Butler Yeats
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A lonely impulse of delight
William Butler Yeats
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Some burn damp faggots, others may consume The entire combustible world in one small room As though dried straw, and if we turn about The bare chimney is gone black out Because the work had finished in that flare.
William Butler Yeats
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Women are hard and proud and stubborn-hearted, Their heads being turned with praise and flattery And that is why their lovers are afraid To tell them a plain story.
William Butler Yeats
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Beloved, let your eyes half close, and your heart beat Over my heart, and your hair fall over my breast, Drowning love's lonely hour in deep twilight of rest.
William Butler Yeats
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I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their day.
William Butler Yeats
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Acquaintance companion One dear brilliant woman The best-endowed, the elect, All by their youth undone, All, all, by that inhuman Bitter glory wrecked.
William Butler Yeats
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The Father and His angelic hierarchy That made the magnitude and glory there Stood in the circuit of a needle's eye.
William Butler Yeats
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Nor seek, for this is also sooth, To hunger fiercely after truth, Lest all thy toiling only breeds New dreams, new dreams there is no truth Saving in thine own heart.
William Butler Yeats