William Butler Yeats

An old man's eagle mind.

Grant me an old man's frenzy, Myself must I remake Till I am Timon and Lear Or that William Blake Who beat upon the wall Till Truth obeyed his call.

Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet; She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet. She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree.

The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.

Mysticism has been in the past and probably ever will be one of the great powers of the world, and it is bad scholarship to pretend the contrary. You may argue against it but you should no more treat it with disrespect than a perfectly cultivated writer would treat (say) the Catholic Church or the Church of Luther no matter how much he disliked them.

Come away, O human child!  To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand,  For the world's more full of weeping Than you can understand.

If soul my look and body touch, Which is the more blest?

How many loved your moments of glad grace And loved your beauty with love false or true But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

You think it horrible that lust and rage Should dance attention upon my old age; They were not such a plague when I was young; What else have I to spur me into song?

Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.