180 quotes
No marble, no conventional phrase;
On limestone quarried near the spot
By his command these words are cut:
Cast a cold eye
On life, on death.
Horseman, pass by!
Last Poems (1936)
Come near, come near, come near — Ah, leave me still
A little space for the rose-breath to fill!
The Rose (1893)
Till the wilderness cried aloud,
A secret between you two,
Between the proud and the proud.
The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910)
When they have but looked upon their images--
Would none had ever loved but you and I!
In The Seven Woods (1904)
It’s certain there is no fine thing
Since Adam’s fall but needs much labouring.
In The Seven Woods (1904)
I loved long and long,
And grew to be out of fashion
Like an old song.
In The Seven Woods (1904)
Yet she, singing upon her road,
Half lion, half child, is at peace.
The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910)
I pray — for word is out
And prayer comes round again —
That I may seem, though I die old,
A foolish, passionate man.
A Full Moon in March (1935)
Because there is safety in derision
I talked about an apparition,
I took no trouble to convince,
Or seem plausible to a man of sense.
Last Poems (1936)
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.
The Tower (1928)
Though leaves are many, the root is one;
Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;
Now I may wither into the truth.
The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910)
Hands, do what you’re bid:
Bring the balloon of the mind
That bellies and drags in the wind
Into its narrow shed.
The Wild Swans at Coole (1919)
For everything that's lovely is
but a brief, dreamy, kind of delight.
In The Seven Woods (1904)
Like a long-legged fly upon the stream
His mind moves upon silence.
Last Poems (1936)
The creations of a great writer are little more than the moods and passions of his own heart, given surnames and Christian names, and sent to walk the earth.
The intellect of man is forced to choose
Perfection of the life, or of the work,
And if it take the second must refuse
A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.
The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933)
She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;
But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree.
Crossways (1889)
Everything that man esteems
Endures a moment or a day.
Love’s pleasure drives his love away,
The painter’s brush consumes his dreams.
The Tower (1928)
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.
Last Poems (1936)
Swift has sailed into his rest;
Savage indignation there
Cannot lacerate his breast.
Imitate him if you dare,
World-besotted traveller; he
Served human liberty.
The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933)