All Poems

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I think it better that in times like these
A poet's mouth be silent, for in truth
We have no gift to set a statesman right;
He has had enough of medding who can please
A young girl in the indolence of her youth,
Or an old man upon a winter's night.

Responsibilities - Introduction

© William Butler Yeats

Pardon, old fathers, if you still remain
Somewhere in ear-shot for the story's end,
Old Dublin merchant "free of the ten and four"
Or trading out of Galway into Spain;

Presences

© William Butler Yeats

This night has been so strange that it seemed
As if the hair stood up on my head.
From going-down of the sun I have dreamed
That women laughing, or timid or wild,

Lines Written In Dejection

© William Butler Yeats

When have I last looked on
The round green eyes and the long wavering bodies
Of the dark leopards of the moon?
All the wild witches, those most noble ladies,
For all their broom-sticks and their tears,
Their angry tears, are gone.

A Man Young And Old: VIII. Summer And Spring

© William Butler Yeats

We sat under an old thorn-tree
And talked away the night,
Told all that had been said or done
Since first we saw the light,

The Hour Before Dawn

© William Butler Yeats

And I will talk before I sleep
And drink before I talk.'
And he
Had dipped the wooden ladle deep
Into the sleeper's tub of beer
Had not the sleeper started up.

The Lover Asks Forgiveness Because Of His Many Moods

© William Butler Yeats

If this importunate heart trouble your peace
With words lighter than air,
Or hopes that in mere hoping flicker and cease;
Crumple the rose in your hair;

He Wishes His Beloved Were Dead

© William Butler Yeats

Were you but lying cold and dead,
And lights were paling out of the West,
You would come hither, and bend your head,
And I would lay my head on your breast;

Imitated From The Japanese

© William Butler Yeats

Seventy years have I lived
No ragged beggar-man,
Seventy years have I lived,
Seventy years man and boy,
And never have I danced for joy.

Two Songs From A Play

© William Butler Yeats

II saw a staring virgin stand
Where holy Dionysus died,
And tear the heart out of his side.
And lay the heart upon her hand

John Kinsella's Lament For Mrs. Mary Moore

© William Butler Yeats

I

A bloody and a sudden end,
Gunshot or a noose,

The Ragged Wood

© William Butler Yeats

O hurry where by water among the trees
The delicate-stepping stag and his lady sigh,
When they have but looked upon their images -
Would none had ever loved but you and I!

The Valley Of The Black Pig

© William Butler Yeats

The dews drop slowly and dreams gather: unknown spears
Suddenly hurtle before my dream-awakened eyes,
And then the clash of fallen horsemen and the cries
Of unknown perishing armies beat about my ears.

Three Movements

© William Butler Yeats

Shakespearean fish swam the sea, far away from land;
Romantic fish swam in nets coming to the hand;
What are all those fish that lie gasping on the strand?

The Ballad Of Father O'Hart

Good Father John O'Hart
In penal days rode out
To a Shoneen who had free lands
And his own snipe and trout.

The Scholars

Would I could cast a sad on the water
Where many a king has gone
And many a king's daughter,
And alight at the comely trees and the lawn,

The Dawn

I would be ignorant as the dawn
That has looked down
On that old queen measuring a town
With the pin of a brooch,

The Arrow

I thought of your beauty, and this arrow,
Made out of a wild thought, is in my marrow.
There's no man may look upon her, no man,
As when newly grown to be a woman,

The Realists

Hope that you may understand!
What can books of men that wive
In a dragon-guarded land,
paintings of the dolphin-drawn

A Nativity

What woman hugs her infant there?
Another star has shot an ear.What made the drapery glisten so?
Not a man but Delacroix.What made the ceiling waterproof?
Landor's tarpaulin on the roofWhat brushes fly and moth aside?