Girl's Song

I went out alone
To sing a song or two,
My fancy on a man,
And you know who.

Another came in sight
That on a stick relied
To hold himself upright;
I sat and cried.

And that was all my song -
When everything is told,
Saw I an old man young
Or young man old?

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 Gyres

William Butler Yeats, Simple Poetry

Parnell's Funeral

William Butler Yeats, Simple Poetry

The Saint And The Hunchback

William Butler Yeats, Simple Poetry

Hanrahan Speaks To The Lovers Of His Songs In Coming Days

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 Song

I Thought no more was needed
Youth to prolong
Than dumb-bell and foil
To keep the body young.
Oh, who could have foretold
That the heart grows old?

Though I have many words,
What womans satisfied,
I am no longer faint
Because at her side?
Oh, who could have foretold
That the heart grows old?

I have not lost desire
But the heart that I had,
I thought twould burn my body
Laid on the death-bed.
But who could have foretold
That the heart grows old?

William Butler Yeats

A Woman Homer sung

If any man drew near
When I was young,
I thought, He holds her dear,
And shook with hate and fear.
But oh, twas bitter wrong
If he could pass her by
With an indifferent eye.

Whereon I wrote and wrought,
And now, being gray,
I dream that I have brought
To such a pitch my thought
That coming time can say,
He shadowed in a glass
What thing her body was.

For she had fiery blood
When I was young,
And trod so sweetly proud
As twere upon a cloud,
A woman Homer sung,
That life and letters seem
But an heroic dream.

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

Two Songs Rewritten For The Tune's Sake

I

My Paistin Finn is my sole desire,
And I am shrunken to skin and bone,
For all my heart has had for its hire
Is what I can whistle alone and alone.
i(Oro, oro.!)
i(Tomorrow night I will break down the door.)
What is the good of a man and he
Alone and alone, with a speckled shin?
I would that I drank with my love on my knee
Between two barrels at the inn.
Oro, oro.!
i(Tomorrow night I will break down the door.)
Alone and alone nine nights I lay
Between two bushes under the rain;
I thought to have whistled her down that
I whistled and whistled and whistled in vain.
i(Oro, oro!)
i(To-morrow night I will break down the door.)


II

I would that I were an old beggar
Rolling a blind pearl eye,
For he cannot see my...

William Butler Yeats

A Faery Song

We who are old, old and gay,
O so old!
Thousands of years, thousands of years,
If all were told:

Give to these children, new from the world,
Silence and love;
And the long dew-dropping hours of the night,
And the stars above:

Give to these children, new from the world,
Rest far from men.
Is anything better, anything better?
Tell us it then:

Us who are old, old and gay,
O so old!
Thousands of years, thousands of years,
If all were told.

William Butler Yeats

The Song Of Wandering Aengus

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck til...

William Butler Yeats