William Butler Yeats (June 13, 1865-January 28, 1939) was an Irish author, theatrical producer and politician. His works include: The Countess Cathleen, 1892; Cathleen ni Houlihan, 1902; The Tower; The Winding Stair; A Vision; and The Oxford Book of Modern Verse, 1936. He was a senator in the Irish Parliament (Dail Eireann), 1922-28. In 1923, he received the Nobel Prize for literature. He wrote in The Wind Among the Reeds, 1899, Into the Twilight:
<And God stands winding His lonely horn,
And time and the world are ever in flight.> 1865WY001
In The Tower, 1928, Two Songs from a Play, II, st. I, Yeats wrote:
<Odor of blood when Christ was slain Made all Platonic tolerance vain
And vain all Doric discipline.> 1865WY002
In The Winding Stair and Other Poems, 1933, For Anne Gregory, st. 3, Yeats wrote:
<Only God, my dear,
Could love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair.> 1865WY003
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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
Endnotes:
1865WY001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). William Butler Yeats, 1899, in The Wind Among the Reeds, Into the Twilight. John Bartlett, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1855, 1980), p. 713.
1865WY002. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). William Butler Yeats, 1928, in The Tower, Two Songs from a Play, II, st. I. John Bartlett, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1855, 1980), p. 715.
1865WY003. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). William Butler Yeats, 1933, in The Winding Stair and Other Poems, For Anne Gregory, st. 3. John Bartlett, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1855, 1980), p. 716.