W.B. Yeats: Quotes about the world

W.B. Yeats was Irish poet and playwright. Explore interesting quotes on world.

W.B. Yeats: 510 quotes285 likes

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”

“There is another world, but it is in this one.”

“Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,
For I would ride with you upon the wind,
Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,
And dance upon the mountains like a flame.”

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

Source: The Land of Heart's Desire

“The night can sweat with terror as before
We pieced our thoughts into philosophy,
And planned to bring the world under a rule,
Who are but weasels fighting in a hole.”

W.B. Yeats book The Tower

I, st. 4 The Tower (1928), Nineteen Hundred And Nineteen http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1547/

“O hurry to the ragged wood, for there
I will drive all those lovers out and cry—
O my share of the world, O yellow hair!
No one has ever loved but you and I.”

W.B. Yeats

The Ragged Wood http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1673/ In The Seven Woods (1904) Context: p>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!Or have you heard that sliding silver-shoed Pale silver-proud queen-woman of the sky, When the sun looked out of his golden hood?-- O that none ever loved but you and I!O hurry to the ragged wood, for there I will drive all those lovers out and cry— O my share of the world, O yellow hair! No one has ever loved but you and I.</p

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”

W.B. Yeats The Second Coming

The Second Coming (1919)
Context: p>Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?</p

“He made the world to be a grassy road
Before her wandering feet.”

W.B. Yeats

St. 3
The Rose (1893), The Rose of the World
Context: Bow down, archangels, in your dim abode:
Before you were, or any hearts to beat,
Weary and kind one lingered by His seat;
He made the world to be a grassy road
Before her wandering feet.

“Imitate him if you dare,
World-besotted traveller; he
Served human liberty.”

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

Swift's Epitaph http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1586/. The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933) Context: Swift has sailed into his rest; Savage indignation there Cannot lacerate his breast. Imitate him if you dare, World-besotted traveller; he Served human liberty.

“… I'm looking for the face I had, before the world was made…”

W.B. Yeats

“If I make the lashes dark
And the eyes more bright
And the lips more scarlet,
Or ask if all be right
From mirror after mirror,
No vanity's displayed:
I'm looking for the face I had
Before the world was made.”

W.B. Yeats

“Literature is always personal, always one man's vision of the world, one man's experience, and it can only be popular when men are ready to welcome the visions of others.”

W.B. Yeats

“For he comes, the human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
From a world more full of weeping
than he can understand.”

W.B. Yeats

The Stolen Child http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1695/, st. 1 Crossways (1889) Variant: Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand. Source: The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats Context: p>Where dips the rocky highland Of Sleuth Wood in the lake, There lies a leafy island Where flapping herons wake The drowsy water rats; There we've hid our faery vats, Full of berries And of reddest stolen cherries.Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand. </p

“A line will take us hours maybe;
Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought,
Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.
Better go down upon your marrow-bones
And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones
Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;
For to articulate sweet sounds together
Is to work harder than all these, and yet
Be thought an idler by the noisy set
Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen
The martyrs call the world.”

W.B. Yeats

St. 1 In The Seven Woods (1904), Adam's Curse http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1431/

“What were all the world’s alarms
To mighty Paris when he found
Sleep upon a golden bed
That first dawn in Helen’s arms?”

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

Lullaby http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1527/, st. 1 The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933)

“The years like great black oxen tread the world,
And God the herdsman goads them on behind,
And I am broken by their passing feet.”

W.B. Yeats

The Countess Cathleen http://www.letras.ufrj.br/veralima/6_referencias/63_e_texts_2005/yeats/countess_cathleen/yeats_countess_cathleen_2005.htm, last lines (1892)

“We and the labouring world are passing by:
Amid men's souls, that waver and give place
Like the pale waters in their wintry race,
Under the passing stars, foam of the sky,
Lives on this lonely face.”

W.B. Yeats

St. 2
The Rose (1893), The Rose of the World

“The only business of the head in the world is to bow a ceaseless obeisance to the heart.”

W.B. Yeats

Letter to Frederick J. Gregg (undated, Sligo, late summer, 1886)

“Much did I rage when young,
Being by the world oppressed,
But now with flattering tongue
It speeds the parting guest.”

W.B. Yeats book The Tower

Youth And Age http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1762/ The Tower (1928)

“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)

“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