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The soldier takes pride in saluting his Captain, The devotee proffers a knee to his Lord, Some back a mare thrown from a thoroughbred, Troy backed its Helen, Troy died and adored Great nations blossom above, A slave bows down to a slave.

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
Great
Soldier
Blossom
Thoroughbred
Slave
Knee
Mares
Died
Captain
Thoroughbreds
Pride
Captains
Troy
Takes
Bows
Devotee
Nations
Loyalty
Adored
Lord
Knees
Helen
Saluting
Back
Thrown
Backed
Mare

More quotes by William Butler Yeats

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I--though heart might find relief Did I become a Christian man and choose for my belief What seems most welcome in the tomb--play a predestined part. Homer is my example and his unchristened heart.
William Butler Yeats
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The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time.
William Butler Yeats
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What do we know but that we face one another in this place?
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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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
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The woods of Arcady are dead, And over is their antique joy Of old the world on dreaming fed Gray Truth is now her painted toy.
William Butler Yeats
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Many ingenious lovely things are gone / That seemed sheer miracle to the multitude.
William Butler Yeats
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The world being illusive, one must be deluded in some way if one is to triumph in it.
William Butler Yeats
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It is love that I am seeking for, But of a beautiful, unheard-of kind That is not in the world.
William Butler Yeats
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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
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I heard the old, old, men say 'all that's beautiful drifts away, like the waters.'
William Butler Yeats
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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
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We poets would die of loneliness but for women, and we choose our men friends that we may have somebody to talk about women with. Letter to Olivia Shakespeare, 1936
William Butler Yeats
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For how can you compete Being honour bred, with one Who, were it proved he lies, Were neither shamed in his own Nor in his neighbour's eyes?
William Butler Yeats
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All the stream that's roaring by Came out of a needle's eye.
William Butler Yeats
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Land of Heart's Desire Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood, But joy is wisdom, time an endless song.
William Butler Yeats
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One man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face.
William Butler Yeats
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We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.
William Butler Yeats
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The night can sweat with terror as before We pieced our thoughts into philosophy, And planned to bring the world under a rule, Who are but weasels fighting in a hole.
William Butler Yeats
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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