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Even the wisest man grows tense With some sort of violence Before he can accomplish fate, Know his work or choose his mate. Poet and sculptor, do the work, Nor let the modish painter shirk

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
Men
Violence
Tense
Sort
Wisest
Grows
Mates
Wisdom
Painter
Artist
Accomplish
Shirk
Art
Fate
Sculptor
Even
Poet
Sculptors
Work
Choose
Mate

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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.
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For such, Being made beautiful overmuch, Consider beauty a sufficient end, Lose natural kindness and maybe The heart-revealing intimacy That chooses right, and never find a friend.
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How can I, that girl standing there, My attention fix On Roman or on Russian Or on Spanish politics?
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Although our love is waning, let us stand by the lone border of the lake once more, together in that hour of gentleness. When the poor tired child, passion, falls asleep.
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What if I bade you leave The cavern of the mind? There's better exercise In the sunlight and wind.
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I say that Roger Casement Did what he had to do, He died upon the gallows But that is nothing new.
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Sometimes my feet are tired and my hands are quiet, but there is no quiet in my heart.
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What shall I do for pretty girls Now my old bawd is dead?
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A symbol is indeed the only possible expression of some invisible essence, a transparent lamp about a spiritual flame while allegory is one of many possible representations of an embodied thing, or familiar principle, and belongs to fancy and not to imagination: the one is a revelation, the other an amusement.
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Hope and Memory have one daughter and her name is Art, and she has built her dwelling far from the desperate field where men hang out their garments upon forked boughs to be banners of battle. O beloved daughter of Hope and Memory, be with me for a while.
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How can the arts overcome the slow dying of men's hearts that we call progress ?
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The problem wiv some blokes is that wen they ain't drunk, they're sober.
William Butler Yeats
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The intellect of man is forced to choose Perfection of the life, or of the work And if it take the second must refuse A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.
William Butler Yeats
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Pale brows, still hands and dim hair, I had a beautiful friend And dreamed that the old despair Would end in love in the end.
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We are fastened to a dying animal.
William Butler Yeats
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The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.
William Butler Yeats
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I would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea! We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fadeand flee And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the sky, Has awaked in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that may not die.
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Why should the imagination of a man Long past his prime remember things that are Emblematical of love and war?
William Butler Yeats
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I have mummy truths to tell Whereat the living mock, Though not for sober ear, For maybe all that hear Should laugh and weep an hour upon the clock.
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O heart, we are old The living beauty is for younger men: We cannot pay its tribute of wild tears.
William Butler Yeats