William Butler Yeats Quotes

Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet; She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet. She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree; But I, being young and foolish, with her did not agree. In a field by the river my love and I did stand, And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand. She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs; But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.

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Tags : William Butler Yeats Quotes , Garden Quotes , Hands Quotes

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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Tags : William Butler Yeats Quotes , Truth Quotes , Afterlife Quotes

Surely among a rich man's flowering lawns, Amid the rustle of his planted hills, Life overflows without ambitious pains; And rains down life until the basin spills, And mounts more dizzy high the more it rains As though to choose whatever shape it wills.

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Tags : William Butler Yeats Quotes , Life Quotes , Pain Quotes

Now as to magic. It is surely absurd to hold me "weak" or otherwise because I choose to persist in a study which I decided deliberately four or five years ago to make, next to my poetry, the most important pursuit of my life...If I had not made magic my constant study I could not have written a single word of my Blake book, nor would The Countess Kathleen have ever come to exist. The mystical life is the center of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write.

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Your hooves have stamped at the black margin of the wood, Even where horrible green parrots call and swing. My works are all stamped down into the sultry mud.

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Tags : William Butler Yeats Quotes , Swings Quotes , Black Quotes

Beloved, gaze in thine own heart, The holy tree is growing there; From joy the holy branches start, And all the trembling flowers they bear. The changing colours of its fruit Have dowered the stars with metry light; The surety of its hidden root Has planted quiet in the night; The shaking of its leafy head Has given the waves their melody, And made my lips and music wed, Murmuring a wizard song for thee.

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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.

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The true faith discovered was When painted panel, statuary, Glass-mosaic, window-glass, Amended what was told awry By some peasant gospeler.

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Life moves out of a red flare of dreams Into a common light of common hours, Until old age brings the red flare again.

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Imagining in excited reverie That the future years had come, Dancing to a frenzied drum, Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.

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Beloved, let your eyes half close, and your heart beat Over my heart, and your hair fall over my breast, Drowning love's lonely hour in deep twilight of rest.

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Tags : William Butler Yeats Quotes , Lonely Quotes , Peace Quotes

on the instant clamorous eaves, A climbing moon upon an empty sky, And all that lamentation of the leaves, Could but compose man's image and his cry.

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Tags : William Butler Yeats Quotes , Nature Quotes , Men Quotes

I long for truth, and yet I cannot stay from that My better self disowns, For a man's attention Brings such satisfaction To the craving in my bones.

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Education is not about filling a pail, it's about lighting a fire.

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One had a lovely face, And two or three had charm, But charm and face were in vain. Because the mountain grass Cannot keep the form Where the mountain hare has lain.

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Tags : William Butler Yeats Quotes , Two Quotes , Poetry Quotes

O heart, be at peace, because Nor knave nor dolt can break What's not for their applause, Being for a woman's sake.

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I went out to the hazelwood because a fire was in my head.

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God spreads the heavens above us like great wings, And gives a little round of deeds and days.

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to be choked with hate May well be of all evil chances chief.

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Dream, dream, for this is also sooth.

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