Im feelin' Yeats tonight :(

edeneden Posts: 407
edited October 2006 in Poetry, Prose, Music & Art
The lover pleads with his friend for old friends

Though you are in your shining days,
Voices among the crowd
And new friends busy with your praise,
Be not unkind or proud,
But think of old friends the most:
Time's bitter flood will rise,
Your beauty perish and be lost
For all eyes but these eyes...

William Butler Yeats
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • ISNISN Posts: 1,700
    Why should I blame her that she filled my days
    With misery, or that she would of late
    Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
    Or hurled the little streets upon the great,
    Had they but courage equal to desire?
    What could have made her peaceful with a mind
    That nobleness made simple as a fire,
    With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
    That is not natural in an age like this,
    Being high and solitary and most stern?
    Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
    Was there another Troy for her to burn?

    WBY
    ....they're asking me to prove why I should be allowed to stay with my baby in Australia, because I'm mentally ill......and they think I should leave......
  • miller8966miller8966 Posts: 1,450
    Both poems were truly amazing
    America...the greatest Country in the world.
  • edeneden Posts: 407
    miller8966 wrote:
    Both poems were truly amazing

    Thank you, and thank you ISN for your addition.
    Theres no one quite like Yeats is there?


    The Drinking Song

    'Wine goes in at the mouth
    and love goes in at the eye
    I lift my glass to my lips
    I look at you and sigh...'

    WB Yeats
  • KwyjiboKwyjibo Posts: 662
    my favorite Yeats:

    I have met them at close of day
    Coming with vivid faces
    From counter or desk among grey
    Eighteenth-century houses.
    I have passed with a nod of the head
    Or polite meaningless words,
    Or have lingered awhile and said
    Polite meaningless words,
    And thought before I had done
    Of a mocking tale or a gibe
    To please a companion
    Around the fire at the club,
    Being certain that they and I
    But lived where motley is worn:
    All changed, changed utterly:
    A terrible beauty is born.

    That woman's days were spent
    In ignorant good-will,
    Her nights in argument
    Until her voice grew shrill.
    What voice more sweet than hers
    When, young and beautiful,
    She rode to harriers?
    This man had kept a school
    And rode our winged horse;
    This other his helper and friend
    Was coming into his force;
    He might have won fame in the end,
    So sensitive his nature seemed,
    So daring and sweet his thought.
    This other man I had dreamed
    A drunken, vainglorious lout.
    He had done most bitter wrong
    To some who are near my heart,
    Yet I number him in the song;
    He, too, has resigned his part
    In the casual comedy;
    He, too, has been changed in his turn,
    Transformed utterly:
    A terrible beauty is born.

    Hearts with one purpose alone
    Through summer and winter seem
    Enchanted to a stone
    To trouble the living stream.
    The horse that comes from the road.
    The rider, the birds that range
    From cloud to tumbling cloud,
    Minute by minute they change;
    A shadow of cloud on the stream
    Changes minute by minute;
    A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
    And a horse plashes within it;
    The long-legged moor-hens dive,
    And hens to moor-cocks call;
    Minute by minute they live:
    The stone's in the midst of all.

    Too long a sacrifice
    Can make a stone of the heart.
    O when may it suffice?
    That is Heaven's part, our part
    To murmur name upon name,
    As a mother names her child
    When sleep at last has come
    On limbs that had run wild.
    What is it but nightfall?
    No, no, not night but death;
    Was it needless death after all?
    For England may keep faith
    For all that is done and said.
    We know their dream; enough
    To know they dreamed and are dead;
    And what if excess of love
    Bewildered them till they died?
    I write it out in a verse -
    MacDonagh and MacBride
    And Connolly and pearse
    Now and in time to be,
    Wherever green is worn,
    Are changed, changed utterly:
    A terrible beauty is born.
    The most remarkable thing about you standing in the doorway, is that its you, and that you're standing in the doorway.

    I write down good reasons to freeze to death in my spiral ring notebook. But in the long tresses of your hair--I am a babbling brook.
  • ISNISN Posts: 1,700
    the languorous world of the Celtic twilight poets

    I think my world is quite languorous - can you tell?
    ....they're asking me to prove why I should be allowed to stay with my baby in Australia, because I'm mentally ill......and they think I should leave......
  • an appropriate time to breathe some life back into this thread :)
  • THE LAKE ISLE OF INNISFREE

    William Butler Yeats

    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 peace comes dropping slow,
    Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
    There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
    And evening full of the linnet's wings.

    I will arise and go now, for always night and day
    I hear the 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.
  • catefrancescatefrances Posts: 29,003
    eden wrote:

    The Drinking Song

    'Wine goes in at the mouth
    and love goes in at the eye
    I lift my glass to my lips
    I look at you and sigh...'

    WB Yeats

    nice. short and sweet. :)
    hear my name
    take a good look
    this could be the day
    hold my hand
    lie beside me
    i just need to say
  • Jeremy1012Jeremy1012 Posts: 7,170
    I'm resurrecting this because William Butler has so beguiled my heart lately. He has become perhaps my favourite of all poets.

    Mad as the Mist and Snow

    Bolt and bar the shutter,
    For the foul winds blow:
    Our minds are at their best this night,
    And I seem to know
    That everything outside us is
    Mad as the mist and snow.

    Horace there by Homer stands,
    Plato stands below,
    And here is Tully's open page.
    How many years ago
    Were you and I unlettered lads
    Mad as the mist and snow?

    You ask what makes me sigh, old friend,
    What makes me shudder so?
    I shudder and I sigh to think
    That even Cicero
    And many-minded Homer were
    Mad as the mist and snow.
    "I remember one night at Muzdalifa with nothing but the sky overhead, I lay awake amid sleeping Muslim brothers and I learned that pilgrims from every land — every colour, and class, and rank; high officials and the beggar alike — all snored in the same language"
Sign In or Register to comment.