A symbol is indeed the only possible expression of some invisible essence, a transparent lamp about a spiritual flame; while allegory is one of many possible representations of an embodied thing, or familiar principle, and belongs to fancy and not… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
All art that is not mere storytelling, or mere portraiture, is symbolic, and has the purpose of those symbolic talismans which medieval magicians made with complex colours and forms, and bade their patients ponder over daily, and guard with holy… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
I would have touched it like a child But knew my finger could but have touched Cold stone and water. I grew wild, Even… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
You know what the Englishman's idea of compromise is? He says, Some people say there is a God. Some people say there is no… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
Beloved, let your eyes half close, and your heart beat Over my heart, and your hair fall over my breast, Drowning love's lonely hour… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
That toil of growing up; The ignominy of boyhood; the distress Of boyhood changing into man; The unfinished man and his pain. — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
I see a schoolboy when I think of him, With face and nose pressed to a sweet-shop window. — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
Only God, my dear, Could love you for yourself alone And not your yellow hair. — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
I know that I shall meet my fate somewhere among the clouds above; those that I fight I do not hate, those that I… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
Great literature has always been written in a like spirit, and is, indeed, the Forgiveness of Sin, and when we find it becoming the… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
Where the wave of moonlight glosses The dim gray sands with light, Far off by furthest Rosses We foot it all the night, Weaving… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
His element is so fine Being sharpened by his death, To drink from the wine-breath While our gross palates drink from the whole wine. — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
