Modern

W. B. Yeats

1865–1939


William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) was an Irish poet and dramatist, born in Dublin, who led the Irish literary revival and co-founded the Abbey Theatre. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923 and served as a senator of the Irish Free State.

His poetry moved from the Celtic Twilight lyrics of The Rose and The Wind Among the Reeds, through the harder manner of Responsibilities and The Wild Swans at Coole, to the visionary poems of Michael Robartes and the Dancer and The Tower. The poems here are drawn from his books published up to 1928.

  1. To the Rose upon the Rood of Time
  2. The Lake Isle of Innisfree
  3. The Sorrow of Love
  4. When You Are Old
  5. Who Goes with Fergus?
  6. The Man Who Dreamed of Faeryland
  7. The Ballad of Father Gilligan
  8. The Stolen Child
  9. Down by the Salley Gardens
  10. The Hosting of the Sidhe
  11. The Song of Wandering Aengus
  12. Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
  13. The Fiddler of Dooney
  14. The Cap and Bells
  15. Into the Twilight
  16. The Secret Rose
  17. The Host of the Air
  18. Hanrahan Reproves the Curlew
  19. Aedh Tells of the Rose in His Heart
  20. Adam's Curse
  21. The Folly of Being Comforted
  22. The Arrow
  23. In the Seven Woods
  24. No Second Troy
  25. Reconciliation
  26. The Fascination of What's Difficult
  27. The Coming of Wisdom with Time
  28. A Drinking Song
  29. The Cold Heaven
  30. September 1913
  31. To a Shade
  32. Paudeen
  33. The Magi
  34. A Coat
  35. The Three Hermits
  36. The Mountain Tomb
  37. A Memory of Youth
  38. To a Child Dancing in the Wind
  39. Running to Paradise
  40. The Wild Swans at Coole
  41. In Memory of Major Robert Gregory
  42. An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
  43. The Fisherman
  44. The Scholars
  45. Lines Written in Dejection
  46. Men Improve with the Years
  47. The Living Beauty
  48. A Deep-Sworn Vow
  49. Broken Dreams
  50. Memory
  51. Her Praise
  52. On Being Asked for a War Poem
  53. The Balloon of the Mind
  54. Easter, 1916
  55. The Second Coming
  56. A Prayer for My Daughter
  57. Sixteen Dead Men
  58. On a Political Prisoner
  59. The Rose Tree
  60. Towards Break of Day
  61. To Be Carved on a Stone at Ballylee
  62. A Meditation in Time of War
  63. Sailing to Byzantium
  64. The Tower
  65. Leda and the Swan
  66. Among School Children
  67. Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen
  68. Meditations in Time of Civil War
  69. A Prayer for My Son
  70. All Souls' Night
  71. The Wheel
  72. Two Songs from a Play
  73. The New Faces
  74. Youth and Age
  75. The Three Monuments
  76. The Song of the Old Mother
  77. The Priest of Coloony
  78. The Old Age of Queen Maeve
  79. Baile and Aillinn
  80. The Withering of the Boughs
  81. The Song of Red Hanrahan
  82. The Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water
  83. Under the Moon
  84. The Rider from the North
  85. His Dream
  86. A Woman Homer Sung
  87. That the Night Come
  88. The Consolation
  89. Friends
  90. King and No King
  91. Peace
  92. Against Unworthy Praise
  93. On Hearing That the Students of Our New University Have Joined the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Agitation against Immoral Literature
  94. To a Poet, Who Would Have Me Praise Certain Bad Poets, Imitators of His and Mine
  95. The Attack on 'The Playboy of the Western World,' 1907
  96. The Mask
  97. Upon a House Shaken by the Land Agitation
  98. At the Abbey Theatre
  99. These Are the Clouds
  100. At Galway Races
  101. A Friend's Illness
  102. All Things Can Tempt Me
  103. The Young Man's Song
  104. Introductory Rhymes
  105. The Grey Rock
  106. The Two Kings
  107. To a Wealthy Man Who Promised a Second Subscription to the Dublin Municipal Gallery if It Were Proved the People Wanted Pictures
  108. To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing
  109. When Helen Lived
  110. The Three Beggars
  111. Beggar to Beggar Cried
  112. The Well and the Tree
  113. The Hour Before Dawn
  114. The Player Queen
  115. The Realists
  116. The Witch
  117. The Peacock
  118. Fallen Majesty
  119. An Appointment
  120. The Dolls
  121. Closing Rhymes
  122. The Death of Cuchulain
  123. The Rose of the World
  124. The Rose of Peace
  125. The Rose of Battle
  126. A Faery Song
  127. A Cradle Song
  128. The Pity of Love
  129. The White Birds
  130. A Dream of Death
  131. A Dream of a Blessed Spirit
  132. The Dedication to a Book of Stories Selected from the Irish Novelists
  133. The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner
  134. The Two Trees
  135. To Ireland in the Coming Times
  136. The Song of the Happy Shepherd
  137. The Sad Shepherd
  138. The Cloak, the Boat, and the Shoes
  139. The Indian upon God
  140. The Indian to His Love
  141. The Falling of the Leaves
  142. Ephemera
  143. The Madness of King Goll
  144. To an Isle in the Water
  145. The Meditation of the Old Fisherman
  146. The Ballad of Moll Magee
  147. The Ballad of the Foxhunter
  148. The Wanderings of Oisin
  149. The Collar-Bone of a Hare
  150. Under the Round Tower
  151. Solomon to Sheba
  152. A Song
  153. To a Young Beauty
  154. To a Young Girl
  155. Tom O'Roughley
  156. The Dawn
  157. On Woman
  158. The Hawk
  159. The People
  160. His Phoenix
  161. A Thought from Propertius
  162. Presences
  163. To a Squirrel at Kyle-na-Gno
  164. In Memory of Alfred Pollexfen
  165. Upon a Dying Lady
  166. A Prayer on Going into My House
  167. The Cat and the Moon
  168. Two Songs of a Fool
  169. Another Song of a Fool
  170. The Double Vision of Michael Robartes
  171. Solomon and the Witch
  172. Under Saturn
  173. The Leaders of the Crowd
  174. Demon and Beast
  175. Wisdom
  176. On a Picture of a Black Centaur by Edmond Dulac
  177. Colonus' Praise
  178. Owen Ahern and His Dancers
  179. A Man Young and Old
  180. From 'Oedipus at Colonus'
  181. The Gift of Harun Al-Rashid
  182. Where My Books go
  183. The Everlasting Voices
  184. The Moods
  185. Breasal the Fisherman
  186. A Cradle Song
  187. The Heart of the Woman
  188. Aedh Laments the Loss of Love
  189. Mongan Laments the Change That Has Come Upon Him and His Beloved
  190. Michael Robartes Bids His Beloved Be at Peace
  191. Michael Robartes Remembers Forgotten Beauty
  192. A Poet to His Beloved
  193. Aedh Gives His Beloved Certain Rhymes
  194. To My Heart, Bidding It Have No Fear
  195. The Valley of the Black Pig
  196. Michael Robartes Asks Forgiveness Because of His Many Moods
  197. Aedh Tells of a Valley Full of Lovers
  198. Aedh Tells of the Perfect Beauty
  199. Aedh Hears the Cry of the Sedge
  200. Aedh Thinks of Those Who Have Spoken Evil of His Beloved
  201. The Blessed
  202. Hanrahan Laments Because of His Wanderings
  203. The Travail of Passion
  204. The Poet Pleads with His Friend for Old Friends
  205. Hanrahan Speaks to the Lovers of His Songs in Coming Days
  206. Aedh Pleads with the Elemental Powers
  207. Aedh Wishes His Beloved Were Dead
  208. Mongan Thinks of His Past Greatness
  209. Ego Dominus Tuus
  210. The Phases of the Moon
  211. The Saint and the Hunchback
  212. Maid Quiet
  213. Old Memory
  214. Never Give All the Heart
  215. The Hollow Wood
  216. O Do Not Love Too Long
  217. The Players Ask for a Blessing on the Psalteries and on Themselves
  218. To Some I Have Talked with by the Fire. A Dedication to a Volume of Early Poems
  219. Fergus and the Druid
  220. A Cradle Song
  221. The Hero, the Girl, and the Fool
  222. Shepherd and Goatherd
  223. Indian Song

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