Tag Archives: WB Yeats

“Sailing to Byzantium” by William Butler Yeats [w/ Audio]

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I

That is no country for old men. The young
 In one another's arms, birds in the trees,
 -- Those dying generations - at their song,
 The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
 Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
 Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
   Caught in that sensual music all neglect
   Monuments of unageing intellect.

II

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
 A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
 Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
 For every tatter in its mortal dress,
 Nor is there singing school but studying
 Monuments of its own magnificence;
   And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
   To the holy city of Byzantium.

III

O sages standing in God's holy fire
 As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
 Come from the holy fire, perne a gyre,
 And be the singing-masters of my soul.
 Consume my heart away; sick with desire
 And fastened to a dying animal
   It knows not what it is; and gather me
   Into the artifice of eternity.

IV

Once out of nature I shall never take
 My bodily form from any natural thing,
 But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
 Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
 To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
 Or set upon a golden bough to sing
   To lords and ladies of Byzantium
   Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

“He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven” by William Butler Yeats [w/ Audio]

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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 the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
 But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
 I have spread my dreams under your feet;
 Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

NOTE: This poem is also sometimes entitled, “Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven.”

“Memory” by William Butler Yeats [w/ Audio]

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One had a lovely face,
   And two or three had charm,
   But charm and face were in vain
 Because the mountain grass
   Cannot but keep the form
   Where the mountain hare has lain.

“When You Are Old” by W. B. Yeats [w/ Audio]

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When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
 And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
 And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
 Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

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;

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.

“A Drinking Song” by William Butler Yeats [w/ Audio]

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Wine comes in at the mouth
 And love comes in at the eye;
 That's all we shall know for truth
 Before we grow old and die.
 I lift the glass to my mouth,
 I look at you, and I sigh.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree by William Butler Yeats [w/ Audio]

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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 honey-bee,
   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 lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
 While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
   I hear it in the deep heart's core.

The Second Coming by W. B. Yeats [w/ Audio]

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Turning and turning in the widening gyre
   The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
 Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
   Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
 The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
   The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
 The best lack all conviction, while the worst
   Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
   Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
 The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
   When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
 Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
   A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
 A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
   Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
 Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
   The darkness drops again; but now I know
 That twenty centuries of stony sleep
   Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
 And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
   Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?

BOOK REVIEW: Collected Poems by W.B. Yeats

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Collected PoemsCollected Poems by W.B. Yeats
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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This collection gathers about 300 poems from 12 poetry collections by Yeats. Most of the dozen collections are included in their entirety.

Yeats is considered by some to be the best poet of the 20th century and by most to be among the best. Most poetry readers will be familiar with Yeats’ more commonly anthologized poems such as: “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” “The Second Coming,” “Leda and the Swan,” and “Sailing to Byzantium.” However, many readers may not be familiar with the full scope of his work. Some may believe that Yeats work is antiquated, not because it isn’t approachable, but because Yeats favored traditional forms (i.e. rhymed and metered poetry) [though he did engage in experimental approaches.] By the time he was writing, there had already begun to be a shift toward free verse, and so his work may seem of a more bygone era than it was. Of course, as will be mentioned below, Yeats work included a lot of political poetry, and political poetry doesn’t tend to age well.

On subject matter more than form, Yeats was progressive and experimental. Yeats poetry drew heavily on mysticism and the occult. In his earliest collection, “Crossways,” he does as many 20th century poets and writers with mystic ambitions or interests did, and turned his attention eastward to India. However, Yeats soon decided to focus on his homeland of Ireland. Hence, one will see references to faeries and Christian mystic notions rather than appeals to Hindu mythos. Many will find Yeats’ appeal to mysticism intriguing.

Yeats’ poems were also often political in nature. He viewed himself as Irish to the core, but was among the Protestant minority. While he was an Irish nationalist who wanted an independent Ireland, he wasn’t so keen on the fact that the full expression of that would mean that his sect, whose power outsized its numbers — would suffer a shift from the ruling to the ruled. “Easter, 1916” is among his most well-known and potent political poems. His feelings about Ireland being yoked into Britain’s affairs can most vividly be seen in “An Irishman Foresees His Death.”

I enjoyed experiencing the full breadth of Yeats’ work from tiny amusing poems like “A Drinking Song” to clever lessons such as “Beggar to Beggar Cried” to more extensive commentary on social issues like “Lapis Lazuli.” I’d highly recommend this collection for poetry readers.

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