William Butler Yeats

I am content to live it all again And yet again, if it be life to pitch Into the frog-spawn of a blind man's ditch.

"The sun in a golden cup" . . . though not "the moon in a silver bag," is a quotation from the last of Mr. Ezra Pound's Cantos.-W. B. YEATS

Swift has sailed into his rest; Savage indignation there Cannot lacerate his breast Imitate him if you dare, World-besotted traveler; he Served human liberty.

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.

Minnaloushe creeps through the grass Alone, important and wise, And lifts to the changing moon His changing eyes. The Wild Swans at Coole 1919. The Cat and the Moon

Locke sank into a swoon; The Garden died; God took the spinning-jenny Out of his side.

Whence had they come The hand and lash that beat down frigid Rome? What sacred drama through her body heaved When world-transforming Charlemagne was conceived?

The Mask "Put off that mask of burning gold With emerald eyes." "O no, my dear, you make so bold To find if hearts be wild and wise, And yet not cold." "I would but find what's there to find, Love or deceit." "It was the mask engaged your mind, And after set your heart to beat, Not what's behind." "But lest you are my enemy, I must enquire." "O no, my dear, let all that be, What matter, so there is but fire In you, in me?"

Down the mountain walls From where Pan's cavern is Intolerable music falls. Foul goat-head, brutal arm appear, Belly, shoulder, bum, Flash fishlike; nymphs and satyrs Copulate in the foam.

The mystical life is the centre of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write. . . . I have always considered myself a voice of what I believe to be a greater renaissance - the revolt of the soul against the intellect.