William Butler Yeats – An Irish Airman foresees his Death

I know that I shall meet my fate

Somewhere among the clouds above;

Those that I fight I do not hate,

Those that I guard I do not love;

My country is Kiltartan Cross,

My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,

No likely end could bring them loss

Or leave them happier than before.

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,

Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,

A lonely impulse of delight

Drove to this tumult in the clouds;

I balanced all, brought all to mind,

The years to come seemed waste of breath,

A waste of breath the years behind

In balance with this life, this death.

William Butler Yeats – Aedh Tells of the Perfect Beauty

O cloud-pale eyelids, dream-dimmed eyes,

The poets labouring all their days

To build a perfect beauty in rhyme

Are overthrown by a woman’s gaze

And by the unlabouring brood of the skies:

And therefore my heart will bow, when dew

Is dropping sleep, until God burn time,

Before the unlabouring stars and you.

William Butler Yeats – The Player Queen

(Song from an Unfinished Play)

My mother dandled me and sang,   

'How young it is, how young!'   

And made a golden cradle   

That on a willow swung.   

   

'He went away,' my mother sang,

'When I was brought to bed,'   

And all the while her needle pulled   

The gold and silver thread.   

   

She pulled the thread and bit the thread   

And made a golden gown,

And wept because she had dreamt that I   

Was born to wear a crown.   

   

'When she was got,' my mother sang,   

'I heard a sea-mew cry,   

And saw a flake of the yellow foam 

That dropped upon my thigh.'   

   

How therefore could she help but braid   

The gold into my hair,   

And dream that I should carry   

The golden top of care?

William Butler Yeats – The Sorrow of Love

The quarrel of the sparrows in the eaves, 

The full round moon and the star-laden sky, 

And the loud song of the ever-singing leaves, 

Had hid away earth's old and weary cry. 

  

And then you came with those red mournful lips, 

And with you came the whole of the world's tears, 

And all the sorrows of her labouring ships, 

And all the burden of her myriad years. 

  

And now the sparrows warring in the eaves, 

The curd-pale moon, the white stars in the sky, 

And the loud chaunting of the unquiet leaves 

Are shaken with earth's old and weary cry.