Quote

The Bishop has a skin, God knows, Wrinkled like the foot of a goose, (All find safety in the tomb.) Nor can he hide in holy black The heron's hunch upon his back, But a birch-tree stood my Jack.

William Butler Yeats

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Upon
Hide
Tomb
Heron
Black
Skin
Geese
Herons
Skins
Tombs
Birch
Back
Safety
Bishops
Hunch
Find
Holy
Jack
Wrinkled
Like
Tree
Hypocrisy
Hunches
Feet
Stood
Goose
Humanity
Foot
Bishop

More quotes by William Butler Yeats

Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Mock mockers after that That would not lift a hand maybe To help good, wise or great To bar that foul storm out, for we Traffic in mockery.
William Butler Yeats
Image
It's certain there is no fine thing Since Adam's fall but needs much laboring.
William Butler Yeats
Image
What made us dream that he could comb gray hair?
William Butler Yeats
Image
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
Image
All men live in suffering I know as few can know, Whether they take the upper road Or stay content on the low.
William Butler Yeats
Image
When Walt Whitman writes in seeming defiance of tradition, he needs tradition for his protection, for the butcher and the baker and the candlestick-maker grow merry over him when they meet his work by chance.
William Butler Yeats
Image
Everything that man esteems Endures a moment or a day.
William Butler Yeats
Image
I cast my heart into my rhymes, That you, in the dim coming times, May know how my heart went with them After the red-rose-bordered hem.
William Butler Yeats
Image
Why should we honour those that die upon the field of battle? A man may show as reckless a courage in entering into the abyss of himself.
William Butler Yeats
Image
We can only begin to live when we conceive life as Tragedy.
William Butler Yeats
Image
Who mocks at music mocks at love.
William Butler Yeats
Image
Take, if you must, this little bag of dreams, Unloose the cord, and they will wrap you round.
William Butler Yeats
Image
Speech after long silence it is right, All other lovers being estranged or dead . . . That we descant and yet again descant Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song: Bodily decrepitude is wisdom young We loved each other and were ignorant.
William Butler Yeats
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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.
William Butler Yeats
Image
Great Powers of falling wave and wind and windy fire, With your harmonious choir Encircle her I love and sing her into peace, That my old care may cease.
William Butler Yeats