William Butler Yeats

Though leaves are many, the root is one;Through all the lying days of my youthI swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;Now I may wither into the truth.

The Coming Of Wisdom With Time, 1910

I heard the old, old men say,'Everything alters,And one by one we drop away.'They had hands like claws, and their kneesWere twisted like the old thorn-treesBy the waters.I heard the old, old men say,'All that's beautiful drifts awayLike the waters.'

The Old Men Admiring Themselves In The Water, 1904

I heard the old, old men say,'Everything alters,And one by one we drop away.'They had hands like claws, and their kneesWere twisted like the old thorn-treesBy the waters.I heard the old, old men say,'All that's beautiful drifts awayLike the waters.'

The Old Men Admiring Themselves In The Water, 1904

When I play on my fiddle in Dooney,Folk dance like a wave of the sea.

The Fiddler Of Dooney, st. 1, 1899

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 doneThe silver apples of the moon,The golden apples of the sun.

The Song Of Wandering Aengus, 1899

All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old,The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart,The heavy steps of the ploughman, splashing the wintry mould,Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.

The Lover Tells Of The Rose In His Heart, st. 1, 1899

When I play on my fiddle in Dooney,Folk dance like a wave of the sea.

The Fiddler Of Dooney, st. 1, 1899

All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old,The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart,The heavy steps of the ploughman, splashing the wintry mould,Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.

The Lover Tells Of The Rose In His Heart, st. 1, 1899

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.

Into The Twilight, st. 4, 1899

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 doneThe silver apples of the moon,The golden apples of the sun.

The Song Of Wandering Aengus, 1899

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.

Into The Twilight, st. 4, 1899

Land of Heart's Desire,Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood,But joy is wisdom, time an endless song.

Lines 373–375, 1894

The Land of Faery,Where nobody gets old and godly and grave,Where nobody gets old and crafty and wise,Where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue.

Lines 48–52, 1894

Land of Heart's Desire,Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood,But joy is wisdom, time an endless song.

Lines 373–375, 1894

The Land of Faery,Where nobody gets old and godly and grave,Where nobody gets old and crafty and wise,Where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue.

Lines 48–52, 1894

Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways: Cuchulain battling with the bitter tide; The Druid, grey, wood-nurtured, quiet-eyed, Who cast round Fergus dreams, and ruin untold;

To The Rose Upon The Rood Of Time, 1893

The brawling of a sparrow in the eaves,The brilliant moon and all the milky sky,And all that famous harmony of leaves,Had blotted out man’s image and his cry.

The Sorrow Of Love, st. 1, 1893

The brawling of a sparrow in the eaves,The brilliant moon and all the milky sky,And all that famous harmony of leaves,Had blotted out man’s image and his cry.

The Sorrow Of Love, st. 1, 1893

Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways: Cuchulain battling with the bitter tide; The Druid, grey, wood-nurtured, quiet-eyed, Who cast round Fergus dreams, and ruin untold;

To The Rose Upon The Rood Of Time, 1893

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.

To The Rose Upon The Rood Of Time, 1893

I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear the lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray, I hear it in the deep heart's core.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree, st. 3, 1893

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.

To The Rose Upon The Rood Of Time, 1893

A pity beyond all tellingIs hid in the heart of love:The folk who are buying and selling,The clouds on their journey above,The cold wet winds ever blowing,And the shadowy hazel groveWhere mouse-grey waters are flowing,Threaten the head that I love.

The Pity Of Love; in recent years a statement which might have originated as a misquotation of the first lines of this has been attributed to Oscar Wilde: "To give and not expect return, that is what lies at the heart of love." — no occurrence prior to 1999 has yet been located., 1893

I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear the lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray, I hear it in the deep heart's core.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree, st. 3, 1893

A pity beyond all tellingIs hid in the heart of love:The folk who are buying and selling,The clouds on their journey above,The cold wet winds ever blowing,And the shadowy hazel groveWhere mouse-grey waters are flowing,Threaten the head that I love.

The Pity Of Love; in recent years a statement which might have originated as a misquotation of the first lines of this has been attributed to Oscar Wilde: "To give and not expect return, that is what lies at the heart of love." — no occurrence prior to 1999 has yet been located., 1893

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. Poets are the policemen of language; they are always arresting those old reprobates the words.

Letter to Ellen O'Leary (3 February 1889), 1889

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. Poets are the policemen of language; they are always arresting those old reprobates the words.

Letter to Ellen O'Leary (3 February 1889), 1889

I wonder anybody does anything at Oxford but dream and remember, the place is so beautiful. One almost expects the people to sing instead of speaking. It is all — the colleges I mean — like an opera.

Letter to Katharine Tynan (25 August 1888), 1888

I hate journalists. There is nothing in them but tittering jeering emptiness. They have all made what Dante calls the Great Refusal, — that is they have ceased to be self-centered, have given up their individuality.... The shallowest people on the ridge of the earth.

Letter to Katharine Tynan (30 August 1888), 1888

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.

Letter to Katharine Tynan (25 August 1888), 1888

I wonder anybody does anything at Oxford but dream and remember, the place is so beautiful. One almost expects the people to sing instead of speaking. It is all — the colleges I mean — like an opera.

Letter to Katharine Tynan (25 August 1888), 1888

I hate journalists. There is nothing in them but tittering jeering emptiness. They have all made what Dante calls the Great Refusal, — that is they have ceased to be self-centered, have given up their individuality.... The shallowest people on the ridge of the earth.

Letter to Katharine Tynan (30 August 1888), 1888

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.

Letter to Katharine Tynan (25 August 1888), 1888

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

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

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

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