We can only begin to live when we conceive life as Tragedy. William Butler Yeats More Quotes by William Butler Yeats More Quotes From William Butler Yeats 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? William Butler Yeats lasts twenties sleep Imagining in excited reverie That the future years had come, Dancing to a frenzied drum, Out of the murderous innocence of the sea. William Butler Yeats future sea years I agree about Shaw - he is haunted by the mystery he flouts. He is an atheist who trembles in the haunted corridor. William Butler Yeats agree mystery atheist Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned. William Butler Yeats anarchy blood world Now as to magic. It is surely absurd to hold me "weak" or otherwise because I choose to persist in a study which I decided deliberately four or five years ago to make, next to my poetry, the most important pursuit of my life...If I had not made magic my constant study I could not have written a single word of my Blake book, nor would The Countess Kathleen have ever come to exist. The mystical life is the center of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write. William Butler Yeats writing book thinking One often hears of a horse that shivers with terror, or of a dog that howls at something a mans eyes cannot see, and men who live primitive lives where instinct does the work of reason are fully conscious,of many things we cannot perceive at all. As life becomes more orderly, more deliberate, the supernatural world sinks farther away. William Butler Yeats horse eye dog 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. William Butler Yeats learning dream winter The true faith discovered was When painted panel, statuary, Glass-mosaic, window-glass, Amended what was told awry By some peasant gospeler. William Butler Yeats mosaics glasses faith Words alone are certain good. William Butler Yeats certain Now as at all times I can see in the mind's eye, In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky With all their ancient faces like rain- beaten stones, And all their helms of silver hovering. William Butler Yeats eye rain blue Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream? William Butler Yeats dream beauty I call on those that call me son, Grandson, or great-grandson, On uncles, aunts, great-uncles or great-aunts, To judge what I have done. Have I, that put it into words, Spoilt what old loins have sent? William Butler Yeats aunt uncles son Oh, Love is the crooked thing, there is nobody wise enough to find out all that is in it, for he will be thinking about love til the stars run away and the shadows eaten the moon. William Butler Yeats stars wise running Even when the poet seems most himself . . . he is never the bundle of accident and incoherence that sits down to breakfast; he has been reborn as an idea, something intended, complete. William Butler Yeats poet breakfast ideas From dream to dream and rhyme to rhyme I have ranged / In rambling talk with an image of air: / Vague memories, nothing but memories. William Butler Yeats air dream memories Some burn damp faggots, others may consume The entire combustible world in one small room. William Butler Yeats small-rooms may world 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? William Butler Yeats rome drama hands 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. William Butler Yeats together work sweet Art bids us touch and taste and hear and see the world, and shrinks from what Blake calls mathematic form, from every abstract form, from all that is of the brain only. William Butler Yeats brain world art If a poet interprets a poem of his own he limits its suggestibility. William Butler Yeats poet poetry limits
