An Appointment

Being out of heart with government
I took a broken root to fling
Where the proud, wayward squirrel went,
Taking delight that he could spring;
And he, with that low whinnying sound
That is like laughter, sprang again
And so to the other tree at a bound.
Nor the tame will, nor timid brain,
Bred that fierce tooth and cleanly limb
And threw him up to laugh on the bough;
No government appointed him.

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

After Long Silence

William Butler Yeats, Simple Poetry

The Delphic Oracle Upon Plotinus

William Butler Yeats, Simple Poetry

Hanrahan Reproves The Curlew

William Butler Yeats, Simple Poetry

The Withering Of The Boughs

William Butler Yeats, Simple Poetry

English

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To A Squirrel At Kyle-na-gno

Come play with me;
Why should you run
Through the shaking tree
As though Id a gun
To strike you dead?
When all I would do
Is to scratch your head
And let you go.

William Butler Yeats

The Appointment (The Adventures Of Seumas Beg)

    Tree! you are years standing there,
        Gripping tight to the side of the hill,
    And your branches are spread on the air,
        While you stand so sad and so still,
            And you do not complain
            When you're wet with the rain,
        Though I think you have often been ill.

    I would like (but it could not be done,
        So you must not keep me to my word)
    To take you away when the sun
        Goes down, and the breezes are stirred,
            And hug you in bed
            With myself, till you said
    That to sleep on a hill was absurd.

    O beautiful tree! when the night
        Is dark, and the winds come and scold,
    I would love then to cuddle you tight,
        For I fear you will die of the co...

James Stephens

Left Upon A Seat In A Yew-tree

Nay, Traveller! rest. This lonely Yew-tree stands
Far from all human dwelling: what if here
No sparkling rivulet spread the verdant herb?
What if the bee love not these barren boughs?
Yet, if the wind breathe soft, the curling waves,
That break against the shore, shall lull thy mind
By one soft impulse saved from vacancy.
                Who he was
That piled these stones and with the mossy sod
First covered, and here taught this aged Tree
With its dark arms to form a circling bower,
I well remember. He was one who owned
No common soul. In youth by science nursed,
And led by nature into a wild scene
Of lofty hopes, he to the world went forth
A favoured Being, knowing no desire
Which genius did not hallow; 'gainst the taint
Of dissolute tongues, and jealou...

William Wordsworth

The Well And The Tree

The man that I praise,
Cries out the empty well,
Lives all his days
Where a hand on the bell
Can call the milch-cows
To the comfortable door of his house.
Who but an idiot would praise
Dry stones in a well?

The Man that I praise,
Cries out the leafless tree,
Has married and stays
By an old hearth, and he
On naught has set store
But children and dogs on the floor.
Who but an idiot would praise
A withered tree?

William Butler Yeats

The Lamentation Of The Old Pensioner

Although I shelter from the rain
Under a broken tree,
My chair was nearest to the fire
In every company
That talked of love or politics,
Ere Time transfigured me.
Though lads are making pikes again
For some conspiracy,
And crazy rascals rage their fill
At human tyranny,
My contemplations are of Time
That has transfigured me.
There's not a woman turns her face
Upon a broken tree,
And yet the beauties that I loved
Are in my memory;
I spit into the face of Time
That has transfigured me.

William Butler Yeats

The Madness Of King Goll

I sat on cushioned otter-skin:
My word was law from Ith to Emain,
And shook at Inver Amergin
The hearts of the world-troubling seamen,
And drove tumult and war away
From girl and boy and man and beast;
The fields grew fatter day by day,
The wild fowl of the air increased;
And every ancient Ollave said,
While he bent down his fading head.
"He drives away the Northern cold.'
i[They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.]
I sat and mused and drank sweet wine;
A herdsman came from inland valleys,
Crying, the pirates drove his swine
To fill their dark-beaked hollow galleys.
I called my battle-breaking men
And my loud brazen battle-cars
From rolling vale and rivery glen;
And under the blinking of the stars
Fell on the...

William Butler Yeats