William Butler Yeats

Father And Child

She hears me strike the board and say
That she is under ban
Of all good men and women,
Being mentioned with a man
That has the worst of all bad names;
And thereupon replies
That his hair is beautiful,
Cold as the March wind his eyes.

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Beautiful Me

They look at my dark complexion and they laugh.
But that don’t bother me.
For I’m beautiful.
Beautiful me.

I love my wide nose,
and thick lips.
I’m beautiful.
Beautiful me.

Now, my hips are wide,
and I got a lot of junk in my trunk.
But I’m beautiful.
Beautiful me.

My hair may be coarse,
And my breast are not enhance.
But I’m still beautiful.
Beautiful me.

So they may point, and laugh if they want too.
They may even call me names because of my
dark skin. I won’t cry because beauty is in
the eye of the beholder. And in my eyes
I’m beautiful.
Beautiful me.

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William Butler Yeats

A Woman Young And Old

I
FATHER AND CHILD
SHE hears me strike the board and say
That she is under ban
Of all good men and women,
Being mentioned with a man
That has the worst of all bad names;
And thereupon replies
That his hair is beautiful,
Cold as the March wind his eyes.

II
BEFORE THE WORLD WAS MADE

IF I make the lashes dark
And the eyes more bright
And the lips more scarlet,
Or ask if all be right
From mirror after mirror,
No vanity's displayed:
I'm looking for the face I had
Before the world was made.
What if I look upon a man
As though on my beloved,
And my blood be cold the while
And my heart unmoved?
Why should he think me cruel
Or that he is betrayed?
I'd have him love the thing that was
Before the world was made.

III
A FIRST CONFESSION

I ADMIT the briar
Entangled in my hair
Did not injure me;
My blenching and trembling,
Nothing but dissembling,
Nothing but coquetry.
I long for truth, and yet
I cannot stay from that
My better self disowns,
For a man's attention
Brings such satisfaction
To the craving in my bones.
Brightness that I pull back
From the Zodiac,
Why those questioning eyes
That are fixed upon me?
What can they do but shun me
If empty night replies?

IV
HER TRIUMPH

I DID the dragon's will until you came
Because I had fancied love a casual
Improvisation, or a settled game
That followed if I let the kerchief fall:
Those deeds were best that gave the minute wings
And heavenly music if they gave it wit;
And then you stood among the dragon-rings.
I mocked, being crazy, but you mastered it
And broke the chain and set my ankles free,
Saint George or else a pagan Perseus;
And now we stare astonished at the sea,
And a miraculous strange bird shrieks at us.

V

CONSOLATION

O BUT there is wisdom
In what the sages said;
But stretch that body for a while
And lay down that head
Till I have told the sages
Where man is comforted.
How could passion run so deep
Had I never thought
That the crime of being born
Blackens all our lot?
But where the crime's committed
The crime can be forgot.

VI
CHOSEN

THE lot of love is chosen. I learnt that much
Struggling for an image on the track
Of the whirling Zodiac.
Scarce did he my body touch,
Scarce sank he from the west
Or found a subtetranean rest
On the maternal midnight of my breast
Before I had marked him on his northern way,
And seemed to stand although in bed I lay.
I struggled with the horror of daybreak,
I chose it for my lot! If questioned on
My utmost pleasure with a man
By some new-married bride, I take
That stillness for a theme
Where his heart my heart did seem
And both adrift on the miraculous stream
Where -- wrote a learned astrologer --
The Zodiac is changed into a sphere.

VII
PARTING
i{He.} Dear, I must be gone
While night Shuts the eyes
Of the household spies;
That song announces dawn.
i{She.} No, night's bird and love's
Bids all true lovers rest,
While his loud song reproves
The murderous stealth of day.
i{He.} Daylight already flies
From mountain crest to crest
i{She.} That light is from the moom.
i{He.} That bird...
i{She.} Let him sing on,
I offer to love's play
My dark declivities.

VIII
HER VISION IN THE WOOD

DRY timber under that rich foliage,
At wine-dark midnight in the sacred wood,
Too old for a man's love I stood in rage
Imagining men. Imagining that I could
A greater with a lesser pang assuage
Or but to find if withered vein ran blood,
I tore my body that its wine might cover
Whatever could rccall the lip of lover.
And after that I held my fingers up,
Stared at the wine-dark nail, or dark that ran
Down every withered finger from the top;
But the dark changed to red, and torches shone,
And deafening music shook the leaves; a troop
Shouldered a litter with a wounded man,
Or smote upon the string and to the sound
Sang of the beast that gave the fatal wound.
All stately women moving to a song
With loosened hair or foreheads grief-distraught,
It seemed a Quattrocento painter's throng,
A thoughtless image of Mantegna's thought --
Why should they think that are for ever young?
Till suddenly in grief's contagion caught,
I stared upon his blood-bedabbled breast
And sang my malediction with the rest.
That thing all blood and mire, that beast-torn wreck,
Half turned and fixed a glazing eye on mine,
And, though love's bitter-sweet had all come back,
Those bodies from a picture or a coin
Nor saw my body fall nor heard it shriek,
Nor knew, drunken with singing as with wine,
That they had brought no fabulous symbol there
But my heart's victim and its torturer.

IX
A LAST CONFESSION

WHAT lively lad most pleasured me
Of all that with me lay?
I answer that I gave my soul
And loved in misery,
But had great pleasure with a lad
That I loved bodily.
Flinging from his arms I laughed
To think his passion such
He fancied that I gave a soul
Did but our bodies touch,
And laughed upon his breast to think
Beast gave beast as much.
I gave what other women gave
'That stepped out of their clothes.
But when this soul, its body off,
Naked to naked goes,
He it has found shall find therein
What none other knows,
And give his own and take his own
And rule in his own right;
And though it loved in misery
Close and cling so tight,
There's not a bird of day that dare
Extinguish that delight.

X
MEETING

HIDDEN by old age awhile
In masker's cloak and hood,
Each hating what the other loved,
Face to face we stood:
'That I have met with such,' said he,
'Bodes me little good.'
'Let others boast their fill,' said I,
'But never dare to boast
That such as I had such a man
For lover in the past;
Say that of living men I hate
Such a man the most.'
'A loony'd boast of such a love,'
He in his rage declared:
But such as he for such as me --
Could we both discard
This beggarly habiliment --
Had found a sweeter word.

XI
FROM THE 'ANTIGONE'

OVERCOME -- O bitter sweetness,
Inhabitant of the soft cheek of a girl --
The rich man and his affairs,
The fat flocks and the fields' fatness,
Mariners, rough harvesters;
Overcome Gods upon Parnassus;
Overcome the Empyrean; hurl
Heaven and Earth out of their places,
That in the Same calamity
Brother and brother, friend and friend,
Family and family,
City and city may contend,
By that great glory driven wild.
Pray I will and sing I must,
And yet I weep -- Oedipus' child
Descends into the loveless dust.

poem by William Butler YeatsReport problemRelated quotes
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A Knocker

There are those who grow
gardens in their heads
paths lead from their hair
to sunny and white cities

it's easy for them to write
they close their eyes
immediately schools of images
stream down their foreheads

my imagination
is a piece of board
my sole instrument
is a wooden stick

I strike the board
it answer me
yes--yes
no--no

for others the green bell of a tree
the blue bell of water
I have a knocker
from unprotected gardens

I thump on the board
and it prompts me
with the moralists dry poem
yes--yes
no--no

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These Lost, These Come At A Cost Women

I see these city lights and flashy cars
These beautiful women lost under stars
These daughters and sisters and mothers
These lost women
These come at a cost women

Given a glance then a dance
Given the means to live by the fiends of these beautiful women
Lost in a daze of green
A daze I've seen

Spotlights on these beautiful women
Eyes on these and cheers for these beautiful women
Lies in these and fears in these lost women
These come at a cost women

Show, bought and ready to go
At a price higher then they know
These women worth more then gold
Priceless
But still sold
Oh these lost women

Don't you know your beautiful
Not hot women
That your beautiful
Not meant to be bought women
Beauty needs to be taught in these women
Instead of this that is not
Left in them to rot
Oh these beautiful women

These I've seen
Women whos pupils are all green
Men whos eyes are gazed in between wide thighs
Silent cries eventually taking its toll
Night after night eventually breaking the soul

I see these city lights and flashy cars
These beautiful women lost under stars
These daughters and sisters and mothers
These lost women
These come at a cost women

Don't you know your beautiful
Not hot women
That you’re beautiful
Not meant to be bought women.

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These Lost, These Come At A Cost Women

I see these city lights and flashy cars
These beautiful women lost under stars
These daughters and sisters and mothers
These lost women
These come at a cost women

Given a glance then a dance
Given the means to live by the fiends of these beautiful women
Lost in a daze of green
A daze I've seen

Spotlights on these beautiful women
Eyes on these and cheers for these beautiful women
Lies in these and fears in these lost women
These come at a cost women

Show, bought and ready to go
At a price higher then they know
These women worth more then gold
Priceless
But still sold
Oh these lost women

Don't you know your beautiful
Not hot women
That your beautiful
Not meant to be bought women
Beauty needs to be taught in these women
Instead of this that is not
Left in them to rot
Oh these beautiful women

These I've seen
Women whos pupils are all green
Men whos eyes are gazed in between wide thighs
Silent cries eventually taking its toll
Night after night eventually breaking the soul

I see these city lights and flashy cars
These beautiful women lost under stars
These daughters and sisters and mothers
These lost women
These come at a cost women

Don't you know your beautiful
Not hot women
That you’re beautiful
Not meant to be bought women.

©Copyright 2008

poem by Regan MackenzieReport problemRelated quotes
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To My Mother

Chiming a dream by the way
With ocean’s rapture and roar,
I met a maiden to-day
Walking alone on the shore:
Walking in maiden wise,
Modest and kind and fair,
The freshness of spring in her eyes
And the fullness of spring in her hair.

Cloud-shadow and scudding sun-burst
Where swift on the floor of the sea,
And a mad wind was romping its worst,
But what was their magic to me?
Or the charm of the midsummer skies?
I only saw she was there,
A dream of the sea in her eyes
And the kiss of the sea in her hair.

I watch her vanish in space;
She came where I walked no more;
But something was passed from her grace
To the spell of the wave and the shore;
And now as the glad stars rise,
She comes to me, rosy and rare,
The delight of the wind in her eyes
And the hand of the wind in her hair.

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Carl Sandburg

Women Washing Their Hair

They have painted and sung
the women washing their hair,
and the plaits and strands in the sun,
and the golden combs
and the combs of elephant tusks
and the combs of buffalo horn and hoof.

The sun has been good to women,
drying their heads of hair
as they stooped and shook their shoulders
and framed their faces with copper
and framed their eyes with dusk or chestnut.

The rain has been good to women.
If the rain should forget,
if the rain left off for a year—
the heads of women would wither,
the copper, the dusk and chestnuts, go.

They have painted and sung
the women washing their hair—
reckon the sun and rain in, too.

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Beautiful Day

Tired of living like my days are bad
When I open up my eyes, I'm glad
And I can't complain 'bout yesterday
Cuz today's a brand new day
Comb my hair and though some like it wrong
Jump in my ride because it's on
And I'm gone, I'm gone
1 - I woke up this morning
Opened up my eyes and prayed, Lord
Cuz it's a beautiful day
No matter what nobody say
Even though it's cloudy
I can see the sun rays
Oh, cuz it's a beautiful day
No matter what nobody say
Cuz it's a beautiful day, a beautiful day
Life just can't get no better than this
Mother Nature's given us a kiss
Cuz tomorrow I'm glad I didn't miss
Let's take advantage of days like this
When the night time does finally hit
There'll be no reason for guns
It'll be fun, fun, fun, fun
Repeat 1
Everything is good because I'm living and I'm healthy
I'm not too concerned 'bout being poor or being wealthy
I feel really good about this blessing given to me
Nothing in this world could ever take all my joy from me
It's beautiful, it's beautiful
It's beautiful, it's beautiful
It's beautiful
A beautiful day, a beautiful day
A beautiful day, a beautiful day
Repeat 1
I don't have a complain in the world
I am doing so good
Without, without, without the money
Without, without, without the stress
Without, without, without the people, oh yeah
Repeat 1 until fade

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Three Starlings

I've seen three starlings in the sun-set
And the cold wind blows all over,
Three starlings flown from the Russian Front
Til the cold wind blow blows over.

Til the cold war wind blows over all
In the cold of the cold war warring,
Three starlings sit in the English mist
With the English Channel calling.

16 March 1974

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Chris- By: Mikhaela Collins

beautiful eyes,
blue eyes,
soft and charming hair,
brown hair with a tinge of blonde,
soft and comfy,
good and wise personality,
christian,
never gives up,
faithful,
speaks good words into people,
yes thats chris i speak of..
a good friend.
always a good friend.

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A Situationer...

when he begins to write
the words
of course, he has in mind someone in particular
for it makes him
more particular too in the choice of
images, like

something so fragile like the last egg
in your hand

or something so beautiful like what you
are not

somethings need not be mentioned
and it will be
peaceful

the moment you say what you have in mind
three dragon heads spring from your neck

so it is better to be cautious
like saying something that we do not like to say really

something like
how i wish to be like you

and you who hears it knows what is true
and you make a rebounding

yes, i like you too and then after the brief moment
sipping coffee and reading the news and looking at on striking passerby

you then part ways
clinching hug, cold kiss.

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The way it goes. (BY A 12 YEAR OLD)

The wind in your hair,
the wind in your face, the wind in your toes,
the wind up in space.

The wind down below,
or even up higher.
as cold as ice,
or as hot as fire.

When the wind tieds down,
the grass stops moving.
The trees are still,
and grandma starts snoring.

The day comes to night,
The sun turns to moon.
Then I have to wait,
till morning to use a spoon.

Good night my child,
now, you rest up good!
for now you'll be sleeping,
aswell as the neighborhood.

So as you sleep,
I'll continue to sing.
and when the day comes
you'll get the chance,
to sing to your kids, my love.

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Fly with the wind

I want to be a bird
so beautiful and free
I want to fly like the wind

I want to be a swan
so graceful and pure
I want to fly like the wind

I want to be a hawk
with eyes that see the soul
I want to fly like the wind

I want to be an owl
wise queen of the night
I want to fly like the wind

I want to be a dove
bringing good luck to many
I want to fly like the wind

I want to be a parrot
with colors and wit
I want to fly like the wind

I want to be a nightingale
with the sweetest of voices
i want to fly like the wind

I want to be a raven
Darker than a starless night
I want to fly like the wind

I want to be me
and if I'm accepted
I will fly with the wind

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Wislawa Szymborska

Identification

It’s good you came—she says.
You heard a plane crashed on Thursday?
Well so they came to see me
about it.
The story is he was on the passenger list.
So what, he might have changed his mind.
They gave me some pills so I wouldn’t fall apart.
Then they showed me I don’t know who.
All black, burned except one hand.
A scrap of shirt, a watch, a wedding ring.
I got furious, that can’t be him.
He wouldn’t do that to me, look like that.
The stores are bursting with those shirts.
The watch is just a regular old watch.
And our names on that ring,
they’re only the most ordinary names.
It’s good you came. Sit here beside me.
He really was supposed to get back Thursday.
But we’ve got so many Thursdays left this year.
I’ll put the kettle on for tea.
I’ll wash my hair, then what,
try to wake up from all this.
It’s good you came, since it was cold there,
and him just in some rubber sleeping bag,
him, I mean, you know, that unlucky man.
I’ll put the Thursday on, wash the tea,
since our names are completely ordinary—

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James Brown

Black rose for my beautiful black women

My beautiful black women take some time to relax, close your
eyes, and let my words rub your backs until your notions come to a
climax from the sensual stimulation in your spin.

My beautiful black women I respect the fact that how you react to men indirect acts and unconditional facts.

My beautiful black women, I understand your pain and your strain, for the day you birth, us men had gained.

My beautiful black women, speak loud, speak proud for all men to understand that you are profound, and endowed.

My beautiful black women, that is dexterous and need not extras, thank God for your beautiful soul for it was told a woman’s love is greater than a man that is why we as men should be glad to hold your hands.

Written by James Brown

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Cold Beer, Women and Music

I like cold beer on a hot day
I like hot women on a cold day
I like music on a hot or cold day

I like to have cold beer in my pad
I like to have my women scantily clad
I like to have my music not bad


I like my cold beer enshrouded
I like my women endowed
I like my music loud

I like my cold beer in my right hand
I like my women tanned
I like my music close at hand

I like cold beer to unwind
I like women to dine
I like music to remind

I like cold beer with women
I like women with cold beer
I like cold beer and women with music

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Your Beautiful

Your beautiful
and not because of your sparkling brown eyes.
Your beautiful
and not because of your flawless hair
Your beautiful
and not because of the clothes you wear
Your beautiful
and not because of how you perfect your make-up
Your beautiful
and not because of what I tell you
Your beautiful
and not because of the image you've achieved
Your beautiful
and not because of where you rest at night
Your beautiful because of whats on the inside

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A Good-Bye

FAREWELL! How soon unmeasured distance rolls
Its leaden clouds between our parted souls!
How little to each other now are we--
And once how much I dreamed we two might be!
I, who now stand with eyes undimmed and dry
To say good-bye--


To say good-bye to all sweet memories,
Good-bye to tender questions, soft replies;
Good bye to hope, good-bye to dreaming too,
Good-bye to all things dear--good-bye to you,
Without a kiss, a tear, a prayer, a sigh--
Our last good-bye.


I had no chain to bind you with at all;
No grace to charm, no beauty to enthral;
No power to hold your eyes with mine, and make
Your heart on fire with longing for my sake,
Till all the yearning passed into one cry:
'Love, not good-bye!'


Ah, no--I had no strength like that, you know;
Yet my worst weakness was to love you so!
So much too well--so much too well--or ill--
Yet even that might have been pardoned still--
It would have been had I been you--you I!
But now--good-bye!


How soon the bitter follows on the sweet!
Could I not chain your fancy's flying feet?
Could I not hold your soul--to make you play
To-morrow in the key of yesterday--?
Dear--do you dream that I would stoop to try?
Ah, no--Good-bye!

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My Women

My black women is black and beautiful
her eyes are black and beautiful
as she smiled and admired her beauty
she's a hard worker full of dreams
she keeps on trying whenever her dreams deems
my black women is black and beautiful

She bears and carries fruits for her fimaly
as she protects and proclaims her love.
look! there she acts and flies like a dove
for she's a carer that cares continously
my black women is black and beauiful

She's a victim of being hurt and raped
although they steal and victimize her virginity
she's a co-creator with God
I love and respect my black women
my black women is black and beautiful.

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The most and the worst

Man wants money most
And uses it worst.
He wants time most
And spends it worst.
He wants things most
And waste them worst.
He wants women most
And miss them worst.
31.12.2006

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