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All things can tempt me from this craft of verse: One time it was a woman's face, or worse-- The seeming needs of my fool-driven land Now nothing but comes readier to the hand Than this accustomed toil.
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
Comes
Fool
Toil
Hands
Youth
Accustomed
Nothing
Poetry
Distraction
Needs
Land
Craft
Readier
Things
Hand
Crafts
Tempt
Time
Face
Driven
Verse
Faces
Worse
Seeming
Woman
Poet
Verses
More quotes by William Butler Yeats
When you are old and gray and full of sleep, and nodding by the fire, take down this book and slowly read, and dream of the soft look your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep.
William Butler Yeats
It's certain that fine women eat A crazy salad with their meat.
William Butler Yeats
Designs in connection with postage stamps and coinage may be described, I think, as the silent ambassadors on national taste.
William Butler Yeats
A mouth that has no moisture and no breath Breathless mouths may summon I hail the superhuman I call it death-in-life and life-in-death.
William Butler Yeats
I have observed dreams and visions very carefully, and am now certain that the imagination has some way of lighting on the truth that the reason has not, and that its commandments, delivered when the body is still and the reason silent, are the most binding we can ever know.
William Butler Yeats
I sat on cushioned otter-skin: My word was law from Ith to Emain, And shook at Invar Amargin The hearts of the world-troubling seamen, And drove tumult and war away.
William Butler Yeats
Come near, that no more blinded by man's fate, I find under the boughs of love and hate, In all poor foolish things that live a day, Eternal beauty wandering on her way.
William Butler Yeats
Shakespeare cared little for the State, the source of all our judgments, apart from its shows and splendours, its turmoils and battles, its flamings out of the uncivilized heart.
William Butler Yeats
You that would judge me, do not judge alone this book or that, come to this hallowed place where my friends' portraits hang and look thereon Ireland's history in their lineaments trace think where man's glory most begins and ends and say my glory was I had such friends.
William Butler Yeats
Why should I seek for love or study it? It is of God and passes human wit I study hatred with great diligence, For that's a passion in my own control, A sort of besom that can clear the soul Of everything that is not mind or sense.
William Butler Yeats
Swift has sailed into his rest Savage indignation there Cannot lacerate his breast Imitate him if you dare, World-besotted traveler he Served human liberty.
William Butler Yeats
O but we dreamed to mend Whatever mischief seemed To afflict mankind, but now That winds of winter blow Learn that we were crack-pated when we dreamed.
William Butler Yeats
Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World! You, too, have come where the dim tides are hurled. Upon the wharves of sorrow, and heard ring The bell that calls us on the sweet far thing.
William Butler Yeats
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.
William Butler Yeats
My father upon the Abbey stage, before him a raging crowd. This Land of Saints, and then as the applause died out, Of plaster Saints his beautiful mischievous head thrown back.
William Butler Yeats
How can we know the dancer from the dance?
William Butler Yeats
Everything that's lovely is But a brief, dreamy kind of delight.
William Butler Yeats
I thought no more was needed Youth to prolong Than dumb-bell and foil To keep the body young. O who could have foretold That the heart grows old?
William Butler Yeats
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
The hare grows old as she plays in the sun And gazes around her with eyes of brightness Before the swift things that she dreamed of were done She limps along in an aged whiteness.
William Butler Yeats