23 William Butler Yeats Quotes on Time

William Butler Yeats quotes on time

6. The years like great black oxen tread the world, And God the herdsman goads them on behind, And I am broken by their passing feet.

28. Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream? For those red lips, with all their mournful pride, Mournful that no new wonder may betide, Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam, And Usna's children died.

29. We and the labouring world are passing by: Amid men's souls, that waver and give place Like the pale waters in their wintry race, Under the passing stars, foam of the sky, Lives on this lonely face.

31. The Land of Faery, Where nobody gets old and godly and grave, Where nobody gets old and crafty and wise, Where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue.

32. Life moves out of a red flare of dreams Into a common light of common hours, Until old age bring the red flare again.

34. Land of Heart's Desire, Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood, But joy is wisdom, time an endless song.

36. And God stands winding His lonely horn, And time and the world are ever in flight; And love is less kind than the grey twilight, And hope is less dear than the dew of the morn.

41. I thought of your beauty, and this arrow, Made out of a wild thought, is in my marrow. There's no man may look upon her, no man, As when newly grown to be a woman, Tall and noble but with face and bosom Delicate in colour as apple blossom. This beauty's kinder, yet for a reason I could weep that the old is out of season.

42. One that is ever kind said yesterday: 'Your well-beloved's hair has threads of grey, And little shadows come about her eyes; Time can but make it easier to be wise Though now it seems impossible, and so All that you need is patience.' Heart cries, 'No, I have not a crumb of comfort, not a grain. Time can but make her beauty over again: Because of that great nobleness of hers The fire that stirs about her, when she stirs, Burns but more clearly. O she had not these ways When all the wild summer was in her gaze.' O heart! O heart! if she'd but turn her head, You'd know the folly of being comforted.

44. I heard the old, old men say, 'Everything alters, And one by one we drop away.' They had hands like claws, and their knees Were twisted like the old thorn-trees By the waters. I heard the old, old men say, 'All that's beautiful drifts away Like the waters.'

46. Sweetheart, do not love too long: I loved long and long, And grew to be out of fashion Like an old song. All through the years of our youth Neither could have known Their own thought from the other's We were so much at one. But O, in a minute she changed-- O do not love too long, Or you will grow out of fashion Like an old song.

53. Though leaves are many, the root is one; Through all the lying days of my youth I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun; Now I may wither into the truth.

57. Ah, that Time could touch a form That could show what Homer's age Bred to be a hero's wage. 'Were not all her life but a storm, Would not painters pain a form Of such noble lines,' I said, 'Such a delicate high head, All that sternness amid charm, All that sweetness amid strength? Ah, but peace that comes at length, Came when Time had touched her form.

70. Unwearied still, lover by lover, They paddle in the cold Companionable streams or climb the air; Their hearts have not grown old.

76. When have I last looked on The round green eyes and the long wavering bodies Of the dark leopards of the moon? All the wild witches, those most noble ladies, For all their broom-sticks and their tears, Their angry tears, are gone.

77. I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their day.

87. All changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.

90. Minute by minute they live: The stone's in the midst of all.

117. But is there any comfort to be found? Man is in love and loves what vanishes, What more is there to say?

120. Come let us mock at the wise; With all those calendars whereon They fixed old aching eyes, They never saw how seasons run, And now but gape at the sun.

132. Somewhere beyond the curtain Of distorting days Lives that lonely thing That shone before these eyes Targeted, trod like Spring.

146. Things said or done long years ago, Or things I did not do or say But thought that I might say or do, Weigh me down, and not a day But something is recalled, My conscience or my vanity appalled.

163. A bloody and a sudden end, Gunshot or a noose, For Death who takes what man would keep, Leaves what man would lose.