W.B. Yeats: Trending quotes (page 2)

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“The woods of Arcady are dead,
And over is their antique joy;
Of old the world on dreaming fed;
Grey Truth is now her painted toy;
Yet still she turns her restless head.”

W.B. Yeats

Source: Crossways (1889), The Song Of The Happy Shepherd, l. 1–5.

Truth , World , Dreams , Joy

“Locke sank into a swoon;
The Garden died;
God took the spinning-jenny
Out of his side.”

W.B. Yeats book The Tower

Fragments http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1484/, I
The Tower (1928)

God

“Fair and foul are near of kin,
And fair needs foul,’ I cried.
‘My friends are gone, but that’s a truth
Nor grave nor bed denied.”

W.B. Yeats book The Winding Stair and Other Poems

Crazy Jane Talks With The Bishop http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1471/, st. 2
The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933)

Truth

“Grant me an old man’s frenzy,
Myself must I remake
Till I am Timon and Lear
Or that William Blake
Who beat upon the wall
Till Truth obeyed his call.”

W.B. Yeats

An Acre of Grass, st. 3
Last Poems (1936-1939)

Truth

“I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.”

W.B. Yeats

The Song Of Wandering Aengus http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1690/
The Wind Among the Reeds (1899)

Kiss , Grass , Time , Sun

“I would mould a world of fire and dew
With no one bitter, grave, or over wise,
And nothing marred or old to do you wrong.”

W.B. Yeats The Land of Heart's Desire

The Land of Heart's Desire (1894)

World

“I think you can leave the arts, superior or inferior, to the conscience of mankind.”

W.B. Yeats

Speech (7 June 1923), Seanad Éireann (Irish Free Senate), on the Censorship of Films Bill. http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/S/0001/S.0001.192306070006.html

Art , Thinking

“Things said or done long years ago,
Or things I did not do or say
But thought that I might say or do,
Weigh me down, and not a day
But something is recalled,
My conscience or my vanity appalled.”

W.B. Yeats book The Winding Stair and Other Poems

V, st. 2
The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933), Vacillation http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1751/

“Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
Alone, important and wise,
And lifts to the changing moon
His changing eyes.”

W.B. Yeats

The Cat And The Moon http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1599/
The Wild Swans at Coole (1919)

Grass , Change

“Like a long-legged fly upon the stream
His mind moves upon silence.”

W.B. Yeats

Long-Legged Fly http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1525/, refrain
Last Poems (1936-1939)

Silence , Flying

“Because there is safety in derision
I talked about an apparition,
I took no trouble to convince,
Or seem plausible to a man of sense.”

W.B. Yeats

The Apparitions http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1589/, st. 1
Last Poems (1936-1939)

Sense

“This country will not always be an uncomfortable place for a country gentleman to live in, and it is most important that we should keep in this country a certain leisured class. I am afraid that Labour disagrees with me in that. On this matter I am a crusted Tory. I am of the opinion of the ancient Jewish book which says "there is no wisdom without leisure."”

W.B. Yeats

Speech, (28 March 1923), Seanad Éireann (Irish Free Senate), on the Damage to Property (Compensation) Bill http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/S/0001/S.0001.192303280011.html

Wisdom , Books , Country

“Never had I more
Excited, passionate, fantastical
Imagination, nor an ear and eye
That more expected the impossible.”

W.B. Yeats book The Tower

The Tower http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1700/, I
The Tower (1928)

Imagination , Passion

“You think it horrible that lust and rage
Should dance attention upon my old age;
They were not such a plague when I was young;
What else have I to spur me into song?”

W.B. Yeats

The Spur http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1693/
Last Poems (1936-1939)

Age , Thinking , Rage , Dance

“Down the mountain walls
From where pan’s cavern is
Intolerable music falls.
Foul goat-head, brutal arm appear,
Belly, shoulder, bum,
Flash fishlike; nymphs and satyrs
Copulate in the foam.”

W.B. Yeats

News for the Delphic Oracle http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1546/, st. 3
Last Poems (1936-1939)

Music , Mountain , Appearance

“At midnight on the Emperor’s pavement flit
Flames that no faggot feeds, nor steel has lit,
Nor storm disturbs, flames begotten of flame,
Where blood-begotten spirits come
And all complexities of fury leave,
Dying into a dance,
An agony of trance,
An agony of flame that cannot singe a sleeve.”

W.B. Yeats book The Winding Stair and Other Poems

Byzantium, st. 4
The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933)

Singing , Dance

“Hands, do what you’re bid:
Bring the balloon of the mind
That bellies and drags in the wind
Into its narrow shed.”

W.B. Yeats

The Balloon Of The Mind http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1595/
The Wild Swans at Coole (1919)

“Irish poets, earn your trade,
Sing whatever is well made,
Scorn the sort now growing up
All out of shape from toe to top,
Their unremembering hearts and heads
Base-born products of base beds.”

W.B. Yeats

Under Ben Bulben http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1745/, V
Last Poems (1936-1939)

Singing , Heart

“Words are always getting conventionalized to some secondary meaning. It is one of the works of poetry to take the truants in custody and bring them back to their right senses.”

W.B. Yeats

Letter to Ellen O'Leary (3 February 1889)

Sense

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

W.B. Yeats The Land of Heart's Desire

The Land of Heart's Desire (1894)

Life , Age , Dreams , Light