I spit upon the dancers painted by Degas. I spit upon their short bodies, their stiff stays, their toes whereupon they spin like peg-tops, above all upon that chambermaid face. They might have looked timeless, Remeses the Great, but not the chambermaid, that old maid history. I spit! I spit! I spit!

To A Squirrel At Kyle-Na-NoCome play with me;Why should you runThrough the shaking treeAs though I'd a gunTo strike you dead?When all I would doIs to scratch your headAnd let you go.

Everything in this world is eater or eaten, seed is the food, fire is the eater.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot holdMere anarchy is loosed upon the world,The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is lostThe best lack all conviction, while the worst are filled with passionate intensity.

O bid me mount and sail up thereAmid the cloudy wrack,For Peg and Meg and Paris' loveThat had so straight a back,Are gone away, and some that stayHave changed their silk for sack.

He had many strange sights to keep him cheerful or to make him sad. I asked him had he ever seen the faeries, and got the reply, 'Am I not annoyed with them?' I asked too if he had ever seen the banshee. 'I have seen it,' he said, 'down there by the water, batting the river with its hands.' ("A Teller of Tales")

On November Eve they are at their gloomiest, for according to the old Gaelic reckoning, this is the first night of winter. This night they dance with the ghosts, and the pooka is abroad, and witches make their spells, and girls set a table with food in the name of the devil, that the fetch of their future lover may come through the window and eat of the food. After November Eve the blackberries are no longer wholesome, for the pooka has spoiled them.

I made my song a coatCovered with embroideriesOut of old mythologiesFrom heel to throat;But the fools caught it,Wore it in the world's eyesAs though they'd wrought it.Song, let them take it,For there's more enterpriseIn walking naked

I have just read a long novel by Henry James. Much of it made me think of the priest condemned for a long space to confess nuns.

The WheelThrough winter-time we call on spring,And through the spring on summer call,And when abounding hedges ringDeclare that winter's best of all;And after that there's nothing goodBecause the spring-time has not come --Nor know what disturbs our bloodIs but its longing for the tomb.