William Butler Yeats

Was it for this the wild geese spread The gray wing upon every tide; For this that all that blood was shed, For this. Edward Fitzgerald died, And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone, All that delirium of the brave? Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, It's with O'Leary in the grave.

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.

I carry the sun in a golden cup, The moon in a silver bag.

O what fine thought we had because we thought that the worst rogues and rascals had died out.

Too long a sacrifice Can make a stone of the heart. O when may it suffice?

It's certain that fine women eat A crazy salad with their meat.

That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.

I am still of opinion that only two topics can be of the least interest to a serious and studious mood-sex and the dead.

I know that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among the clouds above; Those that I fight I do not hate, Those that I guard I do not love; My country is Kiltartan Cross, My countrymen Kiltartan's poor.