Quote

I rise in the dawn, and I kneel and blow Till the seed of the fire flicker and glow And then I must scrub and bake and sweep Till the stars are beginning to blink and peep And the young lie long and dream in their bed.

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
Work
Blow
Seed
Peep
Long
Beginning
Motherhood
Scrub
Fire
Dawn
Bake
Stars
Aging
Kneel
Lying
Seeds
Flicker
Dream
Till
Sweep
Young
Rise
Blink
Must
Bed
Glow

More quotes by William Butler Yeats

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O cloud-pale eyelids, dream-dimmed eyes, The poets labouring all their days To build a perfect beauty in rhyme Are overthrown by a woman's gaze.
William Butler Yeats
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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
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And there's a score of duchesses, surpassing womankind, Or who have found a painter to make them so for pay And smooth out stain and blemish with the elegance of his mind: I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their day.
William Butler Yeats
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Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.
William Butler Yeats
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Sweetheart, do not love too long: I loved long and long, And grew to be out of fashion Like an old song.
William Butler Yeats
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Now must we sing and sing the best we can, But first you must be told your character: Convicted cowards all, by kindred slain.
William Butler Yeats
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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.
William Butler Yeats
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You ask what I have found and far and wide I go, Nothing but Cromwell's house and Cromwell's murderous crew, The lovers and the dancers are beaten into the clay, And the tall men and the swordsmen and the horsemen where are they?
William Butler Yeats
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I broke my heart in two So hard I struck. What matter? for I know That out of rock, Out of a desolate source, Love leaps upon its course.
William Butler Yeats
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The only business of the head in the world is to bow a ceaseless obeisance to the heart.
William Butler Yeats
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Much did I rage when young, Being by the world oppressed, But now with flattering tongue It speeds the parting guest.
William Butler Yeats
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Though I have many words, What woman's satisfied, I am no longer faint Because at her side? O who could have foretold That the heart grows old?
William Butler Yeats
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And learn that the best thing is To change my loves while dancing And pay but a kiss for a kiss.
William Butler Yeats
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Where the wave of moonlight glosses The dim gray sands with light, Far off by furthest Rosses We foot it all the night, Weaving olden dances, Mingling hands and mingling glances Till the moon has taken flight To and fro we leap And chase the frothy bubbles, While the world is full of troubles And is anxious in its sleep. . . .
William Butler Yeats
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Great literature has always been written in a like spirit, and is, indeed, the Forgiveness of Sin, and when we find it becoming the Accusation of Sin, as in George Eliot, who plucks her Tito in pieces with as much assurance as if he had been clockwork, literature has begun to change into something else.
William Butler Yeats
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I call on those that call me son, Grandson, or great-grandson, On uncles, aunts, great-uncles or great-aunts, To judge what I have done. Have I, that put it into words, Spoilt what old loins have sent?
William Butler Yeats
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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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A passion-driven exultant man sings out Sentences that he has never thought.
William Butler Yeats
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I kiss you and kiss you, With arms around my own, Ah, how shall I miss you, When, dear, you have grown.
William Butler Yeats
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Come near I would, before my time to go, Sing of old Eire and the ancient ways: Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days.
William Butler Yeats