Great poems
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Presences
© William Butler Yeats
This night has been so strange that it seemed
As if the hair stood up on my head.
From going-down of the sun I have dreamed
That women laughing, or timid or wild,
The Hour Before Dawn
© William Butler Yeats
And I will talk before I sleep
And drink before I talk.'
And he
Had dipped the wooden ladle deep
Into the sleeper's tub of beer
Had not the sleeper started up.
Colonus' Praise
© William Butler Yeats
(From Oedipus at Colonus)Chorus. Come praise Colonus' horses, and come praise
The wine-dark of the wood's intricacies,
The nightingale that deafens daylight there,
If daylight ever visit where,
Three Marching Songs
© William Butler Yeats
Remember all those renowned generations,
They left their bodies to fatten the wolves,
They left their homesteads to fatten the foxes,
Fled to far countries, or sheltered themselves
In cavern, crevice, or hole,
Defending Ireland's soul.
Cuchulan's Fight With The Sea
© William Butler Yeats
A man came slowly from the setting sun,
To Emer, raddling raiment in her dun,
And said, 'I am that swineherd whom you bid
Go watch the road between the wood and tide,
But now I have no need to watch it more.'
The Tower
© William Butler Yeats
IWhat shall I do with this absurdity -
O heart, O troubled heart - this caricature,
Decrepit age that has been tied to me
As to a dog's tail?
Crazy Jane On The Mountain
© William Butler Yeats
I am tired of cursing the Bishop,
(Said Crazy Jane)
Nine books or nine hats
Would not make him a man.
The Peacock
© William Butler Yeats
What's riches to him
That has made a great peacock
With the pride of his eye?
The wind-beaten, stone-grey,
Crazy Jane Reproved
© William Butler Yeats
I care not what the sailors say:
All those dreadful thunder-stones,
All that storm that blots the day
Can but show that Heaven yawns;
Solomon And The Witch
© William Butler Yeats
And thus declared that Arab lady:
'Last night, where under the wild moon
On grassy mattress I had laid me,
Within my arms great Solomon,
The Lover Tells of the Rose in His Heart
© William Butler Yeats
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 the deeps of my heart
The Secret Rose
© William Butler Yeats
Far-off, most secret, and inviolate Rose,
Enfold me in my hour of hours; where those
Who sought thee in the Holy Sepulchre,
Or in the wine-vat, dwell beyond the stir
Three Songs To The One Burden
© William Butler Yeats
IThe Roaring Tinker if you like,
But Mannion is my name,
And I beat up the common sort
And think it is no shame.
Fergus And The Druid
© William Butler Yeats
Fergus. This would I say, most wise of living souls:
Young subtle Conchubar sat close by me
When I gave judgment, and his words were wise,
And what to me was burden without end,
To him seemed easy, so I laid the crown
Upon his head to cast away my sorrow.
The Ballad Of Father Gilligan
© William Butler Yeats
The old priest Peter Gilligan
Was weary night and day;
For half his flock were in their beds,
Or under green sods lay.
The Black Tower
© William Butler Yeats
Say that the men of the old black tower,
Though they but feed as the goatherd feeds,
Their money spent, their wine gone sour,
Lack nothing that a soldier needs,
That all are oath-bound men:
Those banners come not in.
A Prayer On Going Into My House
© William Butler Yeats
God grant a blessing on this tower and cottage
And on my heirs, if all remain unspoiled,
No table or chair or stool not simple enough
For shepherd lads in Galilee; and grant
The Great Day
© William Butler Yeats
Hurrah for revolution and more cannon-shot!
A beggar upon horseback lashes a beggar on foot.
Hurrah for revolution and cannon come again!
The beggars have changed places, but the lash goes on.
Man And The Echo
© William Butler Yeats
Man. In a cleft that's christened Alt
Under broken stone I halt
At the bottom of a pit
That broad noon has never lit,
The Indian To His Love
© William Butler Yeats
The island dreams under the dawn
And great boughs drop tranquillity;
The peahens dance on a smooth lawn,
A parrot sways upon a tree,
Raging at his own image in the enamelled sea.
