I didn't want to be like Yeats; I wanted to be Yeats.
quote by John Berryman
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I carry Yeats with me wherever I go. He's my constant companion. I always can find some comfort in Yeats no matter what the situation is. Months and months and months go by and I know I need to switch to Shelley or somebody else, but right now Yeats is enough for me.
quote by Linda Hamilton
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Venerable Stones
In the great house of the master stones
are venerable, and those we cast are often
cast only in a brave attempt to soften
the blows cast on our house, our pride, a clone.
The correspondences to all are clear
because our stones, just like our paradigms,
are copies of the master’s, as sincere,
but little more than prose we gild with rhymes.
David Orr reviews Helen Vendler’s “Our Secret Discipline: Yeats and Lyric Form” (“Vendler’s Yeats, ” NYT Book Review, May 11,2008) :
If “Our Secret Discipline” isn’t as strong as it could be, it’s because Vendler has thought deeply about Yeats’s use of form, but not about form apart from Yeats. And this isn’t surprising, really. Her great strength has always been her close reading of individual poets. If that causes her occasionally to find correspondences that don’t exist, well, what steward hasn’t wanted to find a world perfected in the venerable stones of the master’s great house?
5/11/08
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Cemetery Gates
A dreaded sunny day
so I meet you at the cemetry gates
Keats and Yeats are on your side
A dreaded sunny day
so I meet you at the cemetry gates
Keats and Yeats are on your side
while Wilde is on mine
So we go inside and we gravely read the stones
all those people all those lives
where are they now ?
with loves, and hates
and passions just like mine
they were born
and then they lived and then they died
which seems so unfair
and I wantr to crv
You say: "ere thrice the sun hath done salutation to the dawn"
and you claim these words as your own
but Im well-read, have heard them said
a hundred times (maybe less, maybe more)
if you must write prose/poems
the words you use should be your own
dont plagiarise or take "on loans"
there's alweays someone, somewhere
with a big nose, who knows
and who trips you up and laughs
when you fall
You say: "ere long done do does did "
words which could only be your own
you then produce the text
from whence was ripped
(some dizzy whore, 1804)
A dreaded sunny day
so let's go where we're happy
so I meet you at the cemetry gates
Keats and Yeats are on your side
A dreaded sunny day
so let's go where we're wanted
so I meet you at the cemetry gates
Keats and Yeats are on your side
but you lose
because Wilde is on mine
song performed by by Smiths
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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To be Carved On A Stone At Thoor Ballylee
I, THE poet William Yeats,
With old mill boards and sea-green slates,
And smithy work from the Gort forge,
Restored this tower for my wife George;
And may these characters remain
When all is ruin once again.
poem by William Butler Yeats
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To be Carved on a Stone at Ballylee
I, the poet William Yeats,
With old mill boards and sea-green slates,
And smithy work from the Gort forge,
Restored this tower for my wife George;
And may these characters remain
When all is ruin once again.
poem by William Butler Yeats
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Cemetry Gates
A dreaded sunny day
I meet you at the cemetry gates
Keats and yeats are on your side
A dreaded sunny day
So i meet you at the cemetry gates
Keats and yeats are on your side
While wilde is on mine
So we go inside and we gravely read the stones
All those people all those lives
Where are they now ?
With loves, with hates
With passions just like mine
They were born
And then they lived
And then they died
It seems so unfair
Oh, i want to cry
You say : "'ere thrice the sun done salutation to the dawn"
And you claim these words as your own
But i've read well, and i've heard them said
A hundred times (maybe less, maybe more)
If you must write prose and poems
The word you use should be your own
Don't plagiarise or take "on loan"
There's always someone, somewhere
With a big nose, who knows
And trips you up and laughs
When you fall
Who'll trip you up and laugh
When you fall
You say : "long done do does did"
Words which could only be your own
And then produce the text
From whence was ripped
(some dizzy whore, 1804)
A dreaded sunny day
So let's go where we're happy
And i meet you at the cemetry gates
Oh, keats and yeats are on your side
A dreaded sunny day
So let's go where we're wanted
And i meet you at the cemetry gates
Keats and yeats are on your side
But you lose
'cause weird lover wilde is on mine
Sure !
song performed by by Smiths
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Fixation On Blue
in kandinsky's* quest
to catch st. george
he knew
blue was best.
and can we not
still hear yeats#
tap tap tapping
from tombstone-
cast cold eye
on life on death?
so who am i
to dispute
such wisdom,
being
in effect
in complete
agreement with it?
*Wassily Kandinsky (1866 - 1944)
#W. B. Yeats (1865 - 1939)
poem by Doug Bentley
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There Will Come A Day / When I No Longer Write
THERE WILL COME A DAY/ WHEN I NO LONGER WRITE
There will come a day
When I no longer write-
No dream of poetry
And no new poems will appear-
The world will have many new poems
As it always does-
But mine will not be among them-
As in life so in poetry
We are in our own small worlds all- only to ourselves-
‘Horseman pass by’ said Yeats as his good- bye.
But who was Yeats,
And who am I?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Yeats Grave
Silenced by death in the grave
W b yeats couldnt save
Why did you stand here
Were you sickened in time
But I know by now
Why did you sit here?
In the grave
W.b. yeats second
Why should I blame her,
That she filled my days
With misery or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways
Or hurled the little streets upon the grave
Had they but courage
Equal to desire
Sad that maud gonne couldnt stay
But she had mac bride anyway
And you sit here with me
On the isle inistree
And you are writing down everything
But I know by now
Why did you sit here
In the grave...
Why should I blame her
Had they but courage equal to desire
song performed by by Cranberries
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Under Saturn
DO not because this day I have grown saturnine
Imagine that lost love, inseparable from my thought
Because I have no other youth, can make me pine;
For how should I forget the wisdom that you brought,
The comfort that you made? Although my wits have gone
On a fantastic ride, my horse's flanks are spurred
By childish memories of an old cross Pollexfen,
And of a Middleton, whose name you never heard,
And of a red-haired Yeats whose looks, although he died
Before my time, seem like a vivid memory.
You heard that labouring man who had served my people. He said
Upon the open road, near to the Sligo quay --
No, no, not said, but cried it out -- 'You have come again,
And surely after twenty years it was time to come.'
I am thinking of a child's vow sworn in vain
Never to leave that valley his fathers called their home.
poem by William Butler Yeats
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I Walk And Wait For A Poem
I WALK AND WAIT FOR A POEM
I walk and wait for a poem
What else do I have but a poem?
The schoolchildren by the side of the road
Are helped by their father into the car.
Yeats had ‘schoolchildren’ in his poem-
But I am not Yeats.
I stop and write these lines down
A poem is not enough
A small poor poem
Is not enough.
But what else do I have but a small poor poem
And the memory of my children
The children I love so much-
When they were schoolchildren
So long long ago?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Oh Mr Yeats
Oh Yeats you wrote of this terrible beauty
And in your great poem you glorified death
But it's been proved that even suicide cases
At their last moment will struggle for breath.
How can you serve your Country by dying for it?
To me that's just a heroic suicide
Perhaps Ireland's greatest was Daniel O Connell
And it was of natural causes that he died.
Those men who led the nineteen sixteen rising
Were brave that from them can't be took away
They died because they fought for love of Ireland
But life for love too big a price to pay.
And tell me what is fame and what is glory?
So many people only live for fame
In hope that after death they'll be remembered
And that others will pay homage to their name.
Oh Mr Yeats you said in death there's beauty
But I cannot agree with what you've said
I would take wealth and fame whilst I'm still living
For such will be useless to me when I'm dead.
poem by Francis Duggan
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And say my glory was I had such friends.
quote by William Butler Yeats
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Man can embody truth but he cannot know it.
quote by William Butler Yeats
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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How can we know the dancer from the dance?
quote by William Butler Yeats
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But was there ever dog that praised his fleas?
quote by William Butler Yeats
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We are happy when for everything inside us there is a corresponding something outside us.
quote by William Butler Yeats
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There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven't yet met.
quote by William Butler Yeats
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Life is a long preparation for something that never happens.
quote by William Butler Yeats
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Always when I see a man fond of praise I always think it is because he is an affectionate man craving for affection.
quote by J.B. Yeats
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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