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W. B. Yeats

W. B. Yeats

What Was Lost

I sing what was lost and dread what was won,
I walk in a battle fought over again,
My king a lost king, and lost soldiers my men;
Feet to the Rising and Setting may run,
They always beat on the same small stone.

#Irish #NobelPrize #XIXCentury #XXCentury

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Other works by W. B. Yeats...
The Fool by the Roadside

WHEN all works that have From cradle run to grave From grave to cradle run instead; When thoughts that a fool Has wound upon a spool

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 soon be dry; Live in a heavenly mansion,

The Crazed Moon

Crazed through much child-bearing The moon is staggering in the sky; Moon-struck by the despairing Glances of her wandering eye We grope, and grope in vain,

#1933 #TheWindingStairAndOtherPoems

A Last Confession

What lively lad most pleasured me Of all that with me lay? I answer that I gave my soul And loved in misery, But had great pleasure with a lad

 1
On a Picture of a Black Centaur by Edmund Dulac

Your hooves have stamped at the black ma… Even where horrible green parrots call a… My works are all stamped down into the s… I knew that horse-play, knew it for a mu… What wholesome sun has ripened is wholes…

#1928 #TheTower

The Fascination of What’s Difficult

The fascination of what’s difficult Has dried the sap out of my veins, and r… Spontaneous joy and natural content Out of my heart. There’s something ails… That must, as if it had not holy blood

#1910 #TheGreenHelmetAndOtherPoems

 2
The Leaders of the Crowd

THEY must to keep their certainty accu… All that are different of a base intent; Pull down established honour; hawk for n… Whatever their loose fantasy invent And murmur it with bated breath, as thou…

The Players Ask for a Blessing on the Psalteries and on Themselves

Three Voices [together]. Hurry to bless… The mouths that speak, the notes and str… O masters of the glittering town! O! lay the shrilly trumpet down, Though drunken with the flags that sway

News for the Delphic Oracle

THERE all the golden codgers lay, There the silver dew, And the great water sighed for love, And the wind sighed too. Man-picker Niamh leant and sighed

The Peacock

What’s riches to him That has made a great peacock With the pride of his eye? The wind-beaten, stone-grey, And desolate Three Rock

Responsibilities - Closing

While I, that reed-throated whisperer Who comes at need, although not now as o… A clear articulation in the air, But inwardly, surmise companions Beyond the fling of the dull ass’s hoof

For Anne Gregory

‘Never shall a young man, Thrown into despair By those great honey-coloured Ramparts at your ear, Love you for yourself alone

#1933 #TheWindingStairAndOtherPoems

Vacilliation

Between extremities Man runs his course; A brand, or flaming breath. Comes to destroy All those antinomies

#1933 #TheWindingStairAndOtherPoems

Aedh 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 cloths Of night and light and the half-light, I would spread the cloths under your fee…

Lullaby

Beloved, may your sleep be sound That have found it where you fed. What were all the world’s alarms To mighty paris when he found Sleep upon a golden bed




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