William Butler Yeats

For everything that's lovely is but a brief, dreamy, kind of delight.

Never give all the heart, for love Will hardly seem worth thinking of To passionate women if it seem Certain

O she had not these ways When all the wild summer was in her gaze.

Time can but make it easier to be wise Though now it seems impossible, and so All that you need is patience.

I thought of your beauty, and this arrow, Made out of a wild thought, is in my marrow. There's no man may look upon her, no man, As when newly grown to be a woman, Tall and noble but with face and bosom Delicate in colour as apple blossom.

The unavailing outcries and the old bitterness That empty the heart.

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

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with the golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my …

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

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.

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 …

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

I would mould a world of fire and dew With no one bitter, grave, or over wise, And nothing marred or old to do you wrong.

Life moves out of a red flare of dreams Into a common light of common hours, Until old age bring the red flare again.

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.

Bow down, archangels, in your dim abode: Before you were, or any hearts to beat, Weary and kind one lingered by His seat; He made the world to be a grassy road Before her wandering feet.

We and the labouring world are passing by: Amid men's souls, that waver and give place Like the pale waters in their wintry race, Under the passing stars, foam of the sky, Lives on this lonely face.

Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream? For these red lips, with all their mournful pride, Mournful that no new wonder may betide, Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam, And Usna's children died.

And bending down beside the glowing bars, Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled And paced upon the mountains overhead And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

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.

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.

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 have there, a hive for the honeybee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for …

Come near; I would, before my time to go, Sing of old Eire and the ancient ways: Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days.