Quotes from book
The Tower

Name: The Tower
Author: W.B. Yeats

W.B. Yeats

The Tower is a book of poems by W. B. Yeats, published in 1928. The Tower was Yeats's first major collection as Nobel Laureate after receiving the Nobel Prize in 1923. It is considered to be one of the poet's most influential volumes and was well received by the public.The title, which the book shares with the second poem, refers to Ballylee Castle, a Norman tower which Yeats purchased and restored in 1917. Yeats Gaelicized the name to Thoor Ballyllee, and it has retained the title to this day. Yeats often summered at Thoor Ballylee with his family until 1928.The book includes several of Yeats' most famous poems, including "Sailing to Byzantium," "Leda and the Swan," and "Among School Children."

“Many ingenious lovely things are gone
That seemed sheer miracle to the multitude,”

W.B. Yeats book The Tower

I, st. 1
The Tower (1928), Nineteen Hundred And Nineteen http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1547/
Context: Many ingenious lovely things are gone
That seemed sheer miracle to the multitude,
protected from the circle of the moon
That pitches common things about.

“Everything that man esteems
Endures a moment or a day.”

W.B. Yeats book The Tower

II, st. 2
The Tower (1928), Two Songs From a Play http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1741/
Context: Everything that man esteems
Endures a moment or a day.
Love’s pleasure drives his love away,
The painter’s brush consumes his dreams.

“Man is in love and loves what vanishes,
What more is there to say?”

W.B. Yeats book The Tower

I, st. 5-6
The Tower (1928), Nineteen Hundred And Nineteen http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1547/
Context: But is there any comfort to be found?
Man is in love and loves what vanishes,
What more is there to say?

“Of what is past, or passing, or to come.”

W.B. Yeats book The Tower

St. 4
The Tower (1928), Sailing to Byzantium http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1575/
Context: Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

“That is no country for old men.”

W.B. Yeats book The Tower

St. 1
Cf. Nelson Algren's later, "That was no town for the aged or the aging."
The Tower (1928), Sailing to Byzantium http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1575/
Context: That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unaging intellect.