A Coat

I Made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the worlds eyes
As though theyd wrought it.
Song, let them take it
For theres more enterprise
In walking naked.

William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet, dramatist, prose writer, and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms. Yeats was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and was co-founder of the Abbey Theatre. In 1923, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

William Butler Yeats

The Wild Swans At Coole

William Butler Yeats, Simple Poetry

Under Saturn

William Butler Yeats, Simple Poetry

Crazy Jane On The Mountain

William Butler Yeats, Simple Poetry

For Anne Gregory

William Butler Yeats, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

A Ballad Of Buttonry

Clothes and the Man I sing. Reformers, note
These of the Subaltern who owned a Coat.

He was what veterans miscall, for short,
By that objectionable term, a wart:^[1]

The Coat an item of the 'sealed' attire
Wrung from his helpless but reluctant sire;

Also the tails were long; and, for the pride
Thereof, were buttons on the after-side;

Majestic orbs, whose gilded obverse bore
The bossy symbol of his future corps.

The youth, ere sailing for a distant land,
Did, in the interval, receive command

To join a 'Course,' where men of grave repute
Instruct the young idea how to shoot.

Thither he sped, and on the opening day
Rose, and, empanoplied in brave array,

(Ample of flowing skirt, and with great craft<...

John Kendall (Dum-Dum)

The Little Coat

Here's his ragged "roundabout";
Turn the pockets inside out:
See; his pen-knife, lost to use,
Rusted shut with apple-juice;
Here, with marbles, top and string,
Is his deadly "devil-sling,"
With its rubber, limp at last
As the sparrows of the past!
Beeswax - buckles - leather straps -
Bullets, and a box of caps, -
Not a thing of all, I guess,
But betrays some waywardness -
E'en these tickets, blue and red,
For the Bible-verses said -
Such as this his mem'ry kept -
                    "Jesus wept."

Here's a fishing hook-and-line,
Tangled up with wire and twine,
And dead angle-worms, and some
Slugs of lead and chewing-gum,
Blent with scents that can but come
From the oil of rhodium.
Here - a soiled, yet dainty note,
That s...

James Whitcomb Riley

He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with 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.

William Butler Yeats

The Apparitions

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.
Distrustful of thar popular eye
Whether it be bold or sly.
i[Fifteen apparitions have I seen;]
i[The worst a coat upon a coat-hanger.]

I have found nothing half so good
As my long-planned half solitude,
Where I can sit up half the night
With some friend that has the wit
Not to allow his looks to tell
When I am unintelligible.
i[Fifteen apparitions have I seen;]
i[The worst a coat upon a coat-hanger.]

When a man grows old his joy
Grows more deep day after day,
His empty heart is full at length,
But he has need of all that strength
Because of the increasing Night
That opens her mystery and frig...

William Butler Yeats

Cuchulain Comforted

A man that had six mortal wounds, a man
Violent and famous, strode among the dead;
Eyes stared out of the branches and were gone.

Then certain Shrouds that muttered head to head
Came and were gone. He leant upon a tree
As though to meditate on wounds and blood.

A Shroud that seemed to have authority
Among those bird-like things came, and let fall
A bundle of linen. Shrouds by two and thrce

Came creeping up because the man was still.
And thereupon that linen-carrier said:
"Your life can grow much sweeter if you will

"Obey our ancient rule and make a shroud;
Mainly because of what we only know
The rattle of those arms makes us afraid.

"We thread the needles' eyes, and all we do
All must together do.' That done, the man
Took up ...

William Butler Yeats

The Cloak, The Boat, And The Shoes

"What do you make so fair and bright?"
"I make the cloak of Sorrow:
O lovely to see in all men's sight
Shall be the cloak of Sorrow,
In all men's sight."
"What do you build with sails for flight?"
"I build a boat for Sorrow:
O swift on the seas all day and night
Saileth the rover Sorrow,
All day and night."
What do you weave with wool so white?"
"I weave the shoes of Sorrow:
Soundless shall be the footfall light
In all men's ears of Sorrow,
Sudden and light."

William Butler Yeats