W.B. Yeats: Trending quotes (page 3)

“The Babylonian starlight brought
A fabulous, formless darkness in;
Odour of blood when Christ was slain
Made all platonic tolerance vain
And vain all Doric discipline.”

W.B. Yeats

Two Songs from a Play, as quoted from The Cycles of History http://www.yeatsvision.com/history.html

Christ

“Somewhere beyond the curtain
Of distorting days
Lives that lonely thing
That shone before these eyes
Targeted, trod like Spring.”

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

Quarrel In Old Age http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1567/, st. 2
The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933)

Spring

“Come let us mock at the great
That had such burdens on the mind
And toiled so hard and late
To leave some monument behind,
Nor thought of the levelling wind.”

W.B. Yeats book The Tower

V, st. 1
The Tower (1928), Nineteen Hundred And Nineteen http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1547/

“Some burn damp faggots, others may consume
The entire combustible world in one small room
As though dried straw, and if we turn about
The bare chimney is gone black out
Because the work had finished in that flare.
Soldier, scholar, horseman, he,
As ’twere all life’s epitome.
What made us dream that he could comb grey hair?”

W.B. Yeats

In Memory Of Major Robert Gregory http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1516/, st. 11
The Wild Swans at Coole (1919)

Life , World , Dreams

“O love is the crooked thing,
There is nobody wise enough
To find out all that is in it,
For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away
And the shadows eaten the moon.”

W.B. Yeats

Brown Penny http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1454/
The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910)

Love , Star , Thinking

“Come near, that no more blinded by man’s fate,
I find under the boughs of love and hate,
In all poor foolish things that live a day,
Eternal beauty wandering on her way.”

W.B. Yeats

To The Rose Upon The Rood Of Time
The Rose (1893)

Love , Hate , Fate , Beauty

“Dream, dream, for this is also sooth.”

W.B. Yeats

Source: Crossways (1889), The Song Of The Happy Shepherd, l. 57.

Dreams

“O but we dreamed to mend
Whatever mischief seemed
To afflict mankind, but now
That winds of winter blow
Learn that we were crack-pated when we dreamed.”

W.B. Yeats book The Tower

III, st. 3
The Tower (1928), Nineteen Hundred And Nineteen http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1547/

Dreams , Affliction , Learning , Winter

“Whence had they come,
The hand and lash that beat down frigid Rome?
What sacred drama through her body heaved
When world-transforming Charlemagne was conceived?”

W.B. Yeats

Parnell's Funeral and Other Poems http://worldebooklibrary.com/eBooks/WorldeBookLibrary.com/ytpafu.htm (1935). Supernatural Songs http://worldebooklibrary.com/eBooks/WorldeBookLibrary.com/ytpafu.htm#1_0_7

World

“You say, as I have often given tongue
In praise of what another's said or sung,
'Twere politic to do the like by these;
But was there ever a dog that praised his fleas?”

W.B. Yeats

To A Poet, Who Would Have Me Praise Certain Bad Poets, Imitators of His and Mine http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1724/
The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910)

Dogs

“I have found nothing half so good
As my long-planned half solitude,
Where I can sit up half the night
With some friend that has the wit
Not to allow his looks to tell
When I am unintelligible.”

W.B. Yeats

The Apparitions, st. 2
Last Poems (1936-1939)

Solitude , Night

“This melancholy London. I sometimes imagine that the souls of the lost are compelled to walk through its streets perpetually. One feels them passing like a whiff of air.”

W.B. Yeats

Letter to Katharine Tynan (25 August 1888)

Feeling , Soul , Imagination

“And God stands winding His lonely horn,
And time and the world are ever in flight;
And love is less kind than the grey twilight,
And hope is less dear than the dew of the morn.”

W.B. Yeats

Into The Twilight http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1519/, st. 4
The Wind Among the Reeds (1899)