William Butler Quotes

I have nothing but the embittered sun; Banished heroic mother moon and vanished, And now that I have come to fifty years I must endure the timid sun.

Though I have many words, What woman's satisfied, I am no longer faint Because at her side? O who could have foretold That the heart grows old?

Odor of blood when Christ was slain Made all Platonic tolerance vain And vain all Doric discipline.

Who mocks at music mocks at love.

My temptation is quiet. Here at life's end Neither loose imagination Nor the mill of the mind Consuming its rag and bone, Can make the truth known.

Locke sank into a swoon; The Garden died; God took the spinning-jenny Out of his side.

Things thought too long can be no longer thought, For beauty dies of beauty, worth of worth, And ancient lineaments are blotted out.

What's memory but the ash That chokes our fires that have begun to sink?

The night can sweat with terror as before We pieced our thoughts into philosophy, And planned to bring the world under a rule, Who are but weasels fighting in a hole.

I have read somewhere that in the Emperor's palace at Byzantium was a tree made of gold and silver, and artificial birds that sang.

Only the dead can be forgiven; But when I think of that my tongue's a stone.

The house ghost is usually a harmless and well-meaning creature. It is put up with as long as possible. It brings good luck to those who live with it.

What portion in the world can the artist have, Who has awakened from the common dream, But dissipation and despair?

For how can you compete Being honour bred, with one Who, were it proved he lies, Were neither shamed in his own Nor in his neighbour's eyes?

The Father and His angelic hierarchy That made the magnitude and glory there Stood in the circuit of a needle's eye.

Longfellow has his popularity, in the main, because he tells his story or his idea so that one needs nothing but his verses to understand it.

No man, even though he be Shakespeare, can write perfectly when his web is woven of threads that have been spun in many lands.

for never yet Has lover lived, but longed to wive Like them that are no more alive.

And if joy were not on the earth, There were an end of change and birth, And Earth and Heaven and Hell would die, And in some gloomy barrow lie Folded like a frozen fly.

Death and life were not Till man made up the whole, Made lock, stock and barrel Out of his bitter soul

Let the new faces play what tricks they will In the old rooms; night can outbalance day, Our shadows rove the garden gravel still, The living seem more shadowy than they.

We have fallen in the dreams the ever-living Breathe on the tarnished mirror of the world, And then smooth out with ivory hands and sigh.

Endure what life God gives and ask no longer span; Cease to remember the delights of youth, travel-wearied aged man; Delight becomes death-longing if all longing else be vain.

I spit into the face of time that has transfigured me

Give to these children, new from the world, Rest far from men. Is anything better, anything better? Tell us it then.

I kiss you and kiss you, With arms around my own, Ah, how shall I miss you, When, dear, you have grown.

The women that I picked spoke sweet and low And yet gave tongue. "Hound voices" were they all.

May we two stand, When we are dead, beyond the setting suns, A little from other shades apart, With mingling hair, and play upon one lute.

Boughs have their fruit and blossom At all times of the year; Rivers are running over With red beer and brown beer.

Come swish around my pretty punk And keep me dancing still That I may stay a sober man Although I drink my fill.

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.

What if I bade you leave The cavern of the mind? There's better exercise In the sunlight and wind.

Nor seek, for this is also sooth, To hunger fiercely after truth, Lest all thy toiling only breeds New dreams, new dreams; there is no truth Saving in thine own heart.

How could passion run so deep Had I never thought That the crime of being born Blackens all our lot?

But O, sick children of the world, Of all the many changing things In dreary dancing past us whirled, To the cracked tune that Chronos sings, Words alone are certain good.

Never shall a young man, Thrown into despair By those great honey-coloured Ramparts at your ear, Love you for yourself alone And not your yellow hair.

For what but eye and ear silence the mind With the minute particulars of mankind?

Where the world ends The mind is made unchanging, for it finds Miracle, ecstasy, the impossible hope, The flagstone under all, the fire of fires, The roots of the world.

Bodies of holy men and women exude Miraculous oil, odour of violet. But under heavy loads of trampled clay Lie bodies of the vampires full of blood; Their shrouds are bloody and their lips are wet.

When we are high and airy hundreds say That if we hold that flight they'll leave the place, While those same hundreds mock another day Because we have made our art of common things.

My wretched dragon is perplexed.

Now must we sing and sing the best we can, But first you must be told your character: Convicted cowards all, by kindred slain.

Once more the storm is howling, and half hid Under this cradle-hood and coverlid My child sleeps on.

I--love's skein upon the ground, My body in the tomb-- Shall leap into the light lost In my mother's womb.

The common breeds the common, A lout begets a lout, So when I take on half a score I knock their heads about.

I whispered, 'I am too young,' and then, 'I am old enough'; wherefore I threw a penny to find out if I might love.

Acquaintance; companion; One dear brilliant woman; The best-endowed, the elect, All by their youth undone, All, all, by that inhuman Bitter glory wrecked.

When we have blamed the wind we can blame love.

A speckled cat and a tame hare Eat at my hearthstone And sleep there; And both look up to me alone For learning and defence As I look up to Providence.

I weave the shoes of Sorrow: Soundless shall be the footfall light In all men's ears of Sorrow, Sudden and light.