William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

When You are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

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;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree.

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made.
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnights all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnets wing.

I will arise and go now. For always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavement gray,
I hear it in the deep hearts core.

The Song Of Wandering Aengus

I went out to the hazel wood,

Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire aflame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lads and hilly lands.
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

HAD I the heavens' embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

The Fiddler of Dooney

When I play on my fiddle in Dooney,

Folk dance like a wave of the sea;
My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet,
My brother in Moharabuiee.

I passed my brother and cousin:

They read in their books of prayer;
I read in my book of songs
I bought at the Sligo fair.

When we come at the end of time,

To Peter sitting in state,
He will smile on the three old spirits,
But call me first through the gate;

For the good are always the merry,

Save by an evil chance,
And the merry love the fiddle
And the merry love to dance:

And when the folk there spy me,

They will all come up to me,
With Here is the fiddler of Dooney!
And dance like a wave of the sea.

The Fisherman

Although I can see him still,

The freckled man who goes
To a grey place on a hill
In grey Connemara clothes
At dawn to cast his flies,
It's long since I began
To call up to the eyes
This wise and simple man.
All day I'd looked in the face
What I had hoped 'twould be
To write for my own race
And the reality;
The living men that I hate,
The dead man that I loved,
The craven man in his seat,
The insolent unreproved,
And no knave brought to book
Who has won a drunken cheer,
The witty man and his joke
Aimed at the commonest ear,
The clever man who cries
The catch-cries of the clown,
The beating down of the wise
And great Art beaten down.

Maybe a twelvemonth since

Suddenly I began,
In scorn of this audience,
Imagining a man,
And his sun-freckled face,
And grey Connemara cloth,
Climbing up to a place
Where stone is dark under froth,
And the down-turn of his wrist
When the flies drop in the stream;
A man who does not exist,
A man who is but a dream;
And cried, 'Before I am old
I shall have written him one
Poem maybe as cold
And passionate as the dawn.

Down By The Salley Gardens

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.

In a field by the river my love and I did stand,

And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand.
She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;
But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.

-----This poem, put to music, has been sung by numerous singers. Here are
Maura OConnell and Karen Matheson:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=C2UZReQGNVI

And here, in 1941, the incomparable John McCormack:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PcuGnNdCzo&feature=player_detailpage

William Butler Yeats

For Yeats reading a few of his poems, check out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=u2FT4_UUa4I