A Man Young And Old:- The Death Of The Hare

I have pointed out the yelling pack,
The hare leap to the wood,
And when I pass a compliment
Rejoice as lover should
At the drooping of an eye,
At the mantling of the blood.

Then suddenly my heart is wrung
By her distracted air
And I remember wildness lost
And after, swept from there,
Am set down standing in the wood
At the death of the hare.

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 Choice

William Butler Yeats, Simple Poetry

Aedh Wishes His Beloved Were Dead

William Butler Yeats, Simple Poetry

A Man Young And Old:- The Mermaid

William Butler Yeats, Simple Poetry

Mongan Laments The Change That Has Come Upon Him And His Beloved

William Butler Yeats, Simple Poetry

English

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A Man Young And Old:- His Memories

We should be hidden from their eyes,
Being but holy shows
And bodies broken like a thorn
Whereon the bleak north blows,
To think of buried Hector
And that none living knows.

The women take so little stock
In what I do or say
Theyd sooner leave their cosseting
To hear a jackass bray;
My arms are like the twisted thorn
And yet there beauty lay;

The first of all the tribe lay there
And did such pleasure take,
She who had brought great Hector down
And put all Troy to wreck,
That she cried into this ear,
Strike me if I shriek.

William Butler Yeats

A Man Young And Old:- The Friends Of His Youth

Laughter not time destroyed my voice
And put that crack in it,
And when the moons pot-bellied
I get a laughing fit,
For that old Madge comes down the lane,
A stone upon her breast,
And a cloak wrapped about the stone,
And she can get no rest
With singing hush and hush-a-bye;
She that has been wild
And barren as a breaking wave
Thinks that the stones a child.

And Peter that had great affairs
And was a pushing man
Shrieks, I am King of the Peacocks,
And perches on a stone;
And then I laugh till tears run down
And the heart thumps at my side,
Remembering that her shriek was love
And that he shrieks from pride.

William Butler Yeats

A Man Young And Old:- His Wildness

O bid me mount and sail up there
Amid the cloudy wrack,
For peg and Meg and Paris love
That had so straight a back,
Are gone away, and some that stay
Have changed their silk for sack.

Were I but there and none to hear
Id have a peacock cry,
For that is natural to a man
That lives in memory,
Being all alone Id nurse a stone
And sing it lullaby.

William Butler Yeats

He Mourns For The Change That Has Come Upon Him And His Beloved, And Longs For The End Of The World

Do you not hear me calling, white deer with no horns?
I have been changed to a hound with one red ear;
I have been in the Path of Stones and the Wood of Thorns,
For somebody hid hatred and hope and desire and fear
Under my feet that they follow you night and day.
A man with a hazel wand came without sound;
He changed me suddenly; I was looking another way;
And now my calling is but the calling of a hound;
And Time and Birth and Change are hurrying by.
I would that the Boar without bristles had come from the West
And had rooted the sun and moon and stars out of the sky
And lay in the darkness, grunting, and turning to his rest.

William Butler Yeats

A Man Young And Old:- From Oedipus At Colonus

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.

Even from that delight memory treasures so,
Death, despair, division of families, all entanglements of mankind grow,
As that old wandering beggar and these God-hated children know.

In the long echoing street the laughing dancers throng,
The bride is catried to the bridegrooms chamber through torchlight and tumultuous song;
I celebrate the silent kiss that ends short life or long.

Never to have lived is best, ancient writers say;
Never to have drawn the breath of life, never to have looked into the eye of day;
The second bests a gay goodnight and quickly turn away.

William Butler Yeats

A Man Young And Old:- Human Dignity

Like the moon her kindness is,
If kindness I may call
What has no comprehension int,
But is the same for all
As though my sorrow were a scene
Upon a painted wall.

So like a bit of stone I lie
Under a broken tree.
I could recover if I shrieked
My hearts agony
To passing bird, but I am dumb
From human dignity.

William Butler Yeats