Modern
W. B. Yeats
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.
Poems (223)
- To the Rose upon the Rood of Time
- The Lake Isle of Innisfree
- The Sorrow of Love
- When You Are Old
- Who Goes with Fergus?
- The Man Who Dreamed of Faeryland
- The Ballad of Father Gilligan
- The Stolen Child
- Down by the Salley Gardens
- The Hosting of the Sidhe
- The Song of Wandering Aengus
- Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
- The Fiddler of Dooney
- The Cap and Bells
- Into the Twilight
- The Secret Rose
- The Host of the Air
- Hanrahan Reproves the Curlew
- Aedh Tells of the Rose in His Heart
- Adam's Curse
- The Folly of Being Comforted
- The Arrow
- In the Seven Woods
- No Second Troy
- Reconciliation
- The Fascination of What's Difficult
- The Coming of Wisdom with Time
- A Drinking Song
- The Cold Heaven
- September 1913
- To a Shade
- Paudeen
- The Magi
- A Coat
- The Three Hermits
- The Mountain Tomb
- A Memory of Youth
- To a Child Dancing in the Wind
- Running to Paradise
- The Wild Swans at Coole
- In Memory of Major Robert Gregory
- An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
- The Fisherman
- The Scholars
- Lines Written in Dejection
- Men Improve with the Years
- The Living Beauty
- A Deep-Sworn Vow
- Broken Dreams
- Memory
- Her Praise
- On Being Asked for a War Poem
- The Balloon of the Mind
- Easter, 1916
- The Second Coming
- A Prayer for My Daughter
- Sixteen Dead Men
- On a Political Prisoner
- The Rose Tree
- Towards Break of Day
- To Be Carved on a Stone at Ballylee
- A Meditation in Time of War
- Sailing to Byzantium
- The Tower
- Leda and the Swan
- Among School Children
- Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen
- Meditations in Time of Civil War
- A Prayer for My Son
- All Souls' Night
- The Wheel
- Two Songs from a Play
- The New Faces
- Youth and Age
- The Three Monuments
- The Song of the Old Mother
- The Priest of Coloony
- The Old Age of Queen Maeve
- Baile and Aillinn
- The Withering of the Boughs
- The Song of Red Hanrahan
- The Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water
- Under the Moon
- The Rider from the North
- His Dream
- A Woman Homer Sung
- That the Night Come
- The Consolation
- Friends
- King and No King
- Peace
- Against Unworthy Praise
- On Hearing That the Students of Our New University Have Joined the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Agitation against Immoral Literature
- To a Poet, Who Would Have Me Praise Certain Bad Poets, Imitators of His and Mine
- The Attack on 'The Playboy of the Western World,' 1907
- The Mask
- Upon a House Shaken by the Land Agitation
- At the Abbey Theatre
- These Are the Clouds
- At Galway Races
- A Friend's Illness
- All Things Can Tempt Me
- The Young Man's Song
- Introductory Rhymes
- The Grey Rock
- The Two Kings
- To a Wealthy Man Who Promised a Second Subscription to the Dublin Municipal Gallery if It Were Proved the People Wanted Pictures
- To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing
- When Helen Lived
- The Three Beggars
- Beggar to Beggar Cried
- The Well and the Tree
- The Hour Before Dawn
- The Player Queen
- The Realists
- The Witch
- The Peacock
- Fallen Majesty
- An Appointment
- The Dolls
- Closing Rhymes
- The Death of Cuchulain
- The Rose of the World
- The Rose of Peace
- The Rose of Battle
- A Faery Song
- A Cradle Song
- The Pity of Love
- The White Birds
- A Dream of Death
- A Dream of a Blessed Spirit
- The Dedication to a Book of Stories Selected from the Irish Novelists
- The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner
- The Two Trees
- To Ireland in the Coming Times
- The Song of the Happy Shepherd
- The Sad Shepherd
- The Cloak, the Boat, and the Shoes
- The Indian upon God
- The Indian to His Love
- The Falling of the Leaves
- Ephemera
- The Madness of King Goll
- To an Isle in the Water
- The Meditation of the Old Fisherman
- The Ballad of Moll Magee
- The Ballad of the Foxhunter
- The Wanderings of Oisin
- The Collar-Bone of a Hare
- Under the Round Tower
- Solomon to Sheba
- A Song
- To a Young Beauty
- To a Young Girl
- Tom O'Roughley
- The Dawn
- On Woman
- The Hawk
- The People
- His Phoenix
- A Thought from Propertius
- Presences
- To a Squirrel at Kyle-na-Gno
- In Memory of Alfred Pollexfen
- Upon a Dying Lady
- A Prayer on Going into My House
- The Cat and the Moon
- Two Songs of a Fool
- Another Song of a Fool
- The Double Vision of Michael Robartes
- Solomon and the Witch
- Under Saturn
- The Leaders of the Crowd
- Demon and Beast
- Wisdom
- On a Picture of a Black Centaur by Edmond Dulac
- Colonus' Praise
- Owen Ahern and His Dancers
- A Man Young and Old
- From 'Oedipus at Colonus'
- The Gift of Harun Al-Rashid
- Where My Books go
- The Everlasting Voices
- The Moods
- Breasal the Fisherman
- A Cradle Song
- The Heart of the Woman
- Aedh Laments the Loss of Love
- Mongan Laments the Change That Has Come Upon Him and His Beloved
- Michael Robartes Bids His Beloved Be at Peace
- Michael Robartes Remembers Forgotten Beauty
- A Poet to His Beloved
- Aedh Gives His Beloved Certain Rhymes
- To My Heart, Bidding It Have No Fear
- The Valley of the Black Pig
- Michael Robartes Asks Forgiveness Because of His Many Moods
- Aedh Tells of a Valley Full of Lovers
- Aedh Tells of the Perfect Beauty
- Aedh Hears the Cry of the Sedge
- Aedh Thinks of Those Who Have Spoken Evil of His Beloved
- The Blessed
- Hanrahan Laments Because of His Wanderings
- The Travail of Passion
- The Poet Pleads with His Friend for Old Friends
- Hanrahan Speaks to the Lovers of His Songs in Coming Days
- Aedh Pleads with the Elemental Powers
- Aedh Wishes His Beloved Were Dead
- Mongan Thinks of His Past Greatness
- Ego Dominus Tuus
- The Phases of the Moon
- The Saint and the Hunchback
- Maid Quiet
- Old Memory
- Never Give All the Heart
- The Hollow Wood
- O Do Not Love Too Long
- The Players Ask for a Blessing on the Psalteries and on Themselves
- To Some I Have Talked with by the Fire. A Dedication to a Volume of Early Poems
- Fergus and the Druid
- A Cradle Song
- The Hero, the Girl, and the Fool
- Shepherd and Goatherd
- Indian Song