Famous quotes containing the words william butler yeats, butler yeats, william butler, butler and/or yeats:
“O bid me mount and sail up there
Amid the cloudy wrack,
For Peg and Meg and Paris’ love
That had so straight a back,
Are gone away, and some that stay
Have changed their silk for sack.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Saint, do you weep? I hear amid the thunder
The Fenian horses; armour torn asunder;
Laughter and cries. The armies clash and shock,
And now the daylight-darkening ravens flock.
Cease, cease, O mournful, laughing Fenian horn!”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“I did the dragon’s will until you came
Because I had fancied love a casual
Improvisation, or a settled game
That followed if I let the kerchief fall:
Those deeds were best that gave the minute wings
And heavenly music if they gave it wit.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The intellect of man is forced to choose
Perfection of the life, or of the work,”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Now as at all times I can see in the mind’s eye,
In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones
Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)