Easter 1916
I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have... More
An Acre of Grass
Picture and book remain,
An acre of green grass
For air and exercise,
Now strength of body goes;
Midnight, an old... More
The Stolen Child
Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water-... More
Love Song
My love, we will go, we will go, I and you, And away in the woods we will scatter the dew; And the salmon behold, and the ousel too, My love, we will... More
The Ballad of Moll Magee
Come round me, little childer;
There, don't fling stones at me
Because I mutter as I go;
But pity Moll Magee.
... MoreThe Lake Isle of Innisfree
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean rows will I... More
The Rose of the World
Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?
For these red lips, with all their mournful pride,
Mournful that no new wonder may... More
TO IRELAND IN THE COMING TIMES
Know, that I would accounted be
True brother of a company
That sang, to sweeten Ireland's wrong,
Ballad and... More
When You are Old
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft... More
Fergus and the Druid
Fergus. This whole day have I followed in the rocks,
And you have changed and flowed from shape to shape,
First as a... More
Song of the Old Mother
I rise in the dawn, and I kneel and blow
Till the seed of the fire flicker and glow;
And then I must scrub and bake and sweep... More
Literature differs from explanatory and scientific writing in being wrought about a mood, or a community of moods, as the body is wrought about an invisible soul; and if it uses... More
The Song of Wandering Aengus
I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry... More
Our thoughts and emotions are often but spray flung up from hidden tides that follow a moon no eye can see. I remember that... More
He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark... More
The Withering of the Boughs
I cried when the moon was murmuring to the birds:
'Let peewit call and curlew cry where they will,
I long for your merry... More
The Theatre
I
I remember, some years ago, advising a distinguished, though too little recognized, writer of poetical plays to write a play as unlike... More
A Song From ‘The Player Queen’
My mother dandled me and sang,
'How young it is, how young!'
And made a golden cradle
That on a willow swung... More
Ernest Renan described what he held to be Celtic characteristics in The Poetry of the Celtic Races... More
ON BAILE’S STRAND.
DEIRDRE
to
MRS. PATRICK CAMPBELL
who in the generosity of her genius has played my Deirdre in Dublin and London with the Abbey Company, as well as... More
A WOMAN HOMER SUNG
If any man drew near
When I was young,
I thought, “He holds her dear,”
And shook with hate and fear.
But... More
The Fascination of What’s Difficult
The fascination of what's difficult
Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent
Spontaneous joy and natural... More
To a Poet, who would have me Praise certain Bad Poets, Imitators of His and Mine
You say, as I have often given tongue
In praise of what another’s said or... More
The Cold Heaven
Suddenly I saw the cold and rook-delighting heaven
That seemed as though ice burned and was but the more
ice,
And... More
A Coat
I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But he fools caught it,
Wore it in the... More
The Balloon of the Mind
Hands, do what you're bid:
Bring the balloon of the mind
That bellies and drags in the wind
Into its narrow shed.
The Dreaming Of The Bones
The stage is any bare place in a room close to the wall. A screen with a pattern of mountain and sky can stand against the wall, or a curtain with a like... More
Solomon and the Witch
And thus declared that Arab lady:
'Last night, where under the wild moon
On grassy mattress I had laid me,
Within my... More
The Cat and the Moon
1926
to John Masefield
Persons in the Play
A Blind Beggar
A Lame Beggar
Three Musicians
Scene... More
The Tower
I
What shall I do with this absurdity –
O heart, O troubled heart – this caricature,
Decrepit age that has been tied to me
As... More
The Wheel
Through winter-time we call on spring,
And through the spring on summer call,
And when abounding hedges ring
Declare that winter's... More
Meditations in Time of Civil War
I. Ancestral Houses
Surely among a rich man’s flowering lawns,
Amid the rustle of his planted hills,... More
Sailing to Byzantium
I
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
– Those dying generations – at their song... More
Among School Children
I
I walk through the long schoolroom questioning;
A kind old nun in a white hood replies;
The children learn to cipher... More
Leda and the Swan
A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in... More
REMORSE FOR INTEMPERATE SPEECH
I ranted to the knave or fool,
But outgrew that school,
Would transform the part,
Fit audience found, but... More
Byzantium
The unpurged images of day recede;
The Emperor's drunken soldiery are abed;
Night resonance recedes, night walkers' song
After great... More
Crazy Jane talks with the Bishop
I met the Bishop on the road
And much said he and I.
'Those breasts are flat and fallen now,
Those veins must... More
A Dialogue of Self and Soul
I
My Soul. I summon to the winding ancient stair;
Set all your mind upon the steep ascent,
Upon the... More
Meru
Civilisation is hooped together, brought
Under a rule, under the semblance of peace
By manifold illusion; but man’s life is thought,
And he, despite... More
What Then?
His chosen comrades thought at school
He must grow a famous man;
He thought the same and lived by rule,
All his twenties crammed... More
UNDER BEN BULBEN
I
Swear by what the sages spoke
Round the Mareotic Lake
That the Witch of Atlas knew,
Spoke and set at the... More
Those Images
What if I bade you leave
The cavern of the mind?
There's better exercise
In the sunlight and wind.
I never bade... More
High Talk
Processions that lack high stilts have nothing that catches the eye.
What if my great-granddad had a pair that were twenty foot high,
And... More
Lapis Lazuli
(For Harry Clifton)
I have heard that hysterical women say
They are sick of the palette and fiddle-bow.
Of poets that are always... More
Politics
‘In our time the destiny of man presents its
meaning in political terms.’ – Thomas Mann
How can I, that girl... More
Purgatory
A ruined house and a bare tree in the background.
BOY: Half door, hall door
Hither and thither day and night
Hill... More
The Circus Animals’ Desertion
I
I sought a theme and sought for it in vain,
I sought it daily for six weeks or so.
Maybe at last, being but a... More
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