50 Quotes by W.B. Yeats

The Scholars"Bald heads forgetful of their sins,Old, learned, respectable bald headsEdit and annotate the linesThat young men, tossing on their beds,Rhymed out in love’s despairTo flatter beauty’s ignorant ear.They’ll cough in the ink to the world’s end;Wear out the carpet with their shoesEarning respect; have no strange friend;If they have sinned nobody knows.Lord, what would they sayShould their Catullus walk that way?

How far away the stars seem, and how farIs our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart!

Turning and turning in the widening gyreThe falcon cannot hear the falconer;Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world

The last stroke of midnight dies.All day in the one chairFrom dream to dream and rhyme to rhyme I have rangedIn rambling talk with an image of air:Vague memories, nothing but memories.

Is this my dream, or the truth?O would that we had metWhen I had my burning youth;But I grow old among dreams,A weather-worn, marble tritonAmong the streams.

(I) only write it now because I have grown to believe that there is no dangerous idea, which does not become less dangerous when written out in sincere and careful English. ("The Adoration of The Magi")

Heart-mysteries there, and yet when all is saidIt was the dream itself enchanted me("The Circus Animal's Desertion")

The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.

Surely some revelation is at hand.