Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition

A Selection from the Love Poetry of William Butler Yeats (Author: William Butler Yeats)

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poem 1

Early Poems 1890–1892

The Pity of Love

1. A pity beyond all telling
   Is hid in the heart of love:
   The folk who are buying and selling;
   The clouds on their journey above;
   The cold wet winds ever blowing;
   And the shadowy hazel grove
   Where mouse-grey waters are flowing
   Threaten the head that I love.

The Rose of Battle

1. Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the world!
   The tall thought-woven sails, that flap unfurled
   Above the tide of hours, throuble the air,
   And God's bell buoyed to be the water's care
   While hushed from fear, or loud with hope, a band
   With blown, spray-dabbled hair gather at hand.
   Turn if you may from battles never done,
   I call, as they go by me one by one,
   Danger no refuge holds, and war no peace,
   For him who hears love sing and never cease,
   Beside her clean-swept hearth, her quiet shade:
   But gather all for whom no love hath made
   A woven silence, or but came to cast
   A song into the air, and singing past
   To smile on the pale dawn; and gather you

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   Who have sought more than is in rain or dew
   Or in the sun and moon, or on the earth,
   Or sighs amid the wandering, starry mirth,
   Or comes in laughter from the sea's sad lips;
   And wage God's battles in the long gray ships.
   The sad, the lonely, the insatiable,
   To these Old Night shall all her mystery tell;
   God's bell has claimed them by the little cry
   Of their hearts, that may not live nor die.
   Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World!
   You, too, have come where the dim tides are hurled
   Upon the wharves of sorrow, and heard ring
   The bell that calls us on; the sweet far thing.
   Beauty grown sad with its eternity
   Made you of us, and of the dim gray sea.
   Our long ships loose thought-woven sails and wait,
   For God has bid them share an equal fate;
   And when at last defeated in His wars,
   They have gone down under the same white stars,
   We shall no longer hear the little cry
   Of our sad hearts, that may not live nor die.

When you are old

1. When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
   And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
   And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
   Your eyes had once and of their shadows deep;

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2. How many loved your moments of glad grace,
   And loved your beauty with love false or true;
   But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
   And loved the sorrows of your changing face.
3. And bending down beside the glowing bars
   Murmus, a little sadly, how love fled
   And paced upon the mountains overhead
   And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

The Rose of the world

1. Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?
   For these red lips, with all their mournful pride,
   Mournful that no new wonder may betide,
   Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam,
   And Usna's children died.
2. We and the labouring world are passing by:
   Amid men's souls, that waver and give place
   Like the pale waters in their wintry race,
   Under the passing stars, foam of the sky,
   Lives on this lonely face.
3. Bow down, archangels, in your dim abode:
   Before you were, or any hearts to beat,
   Weary and kind one lingered by His seat;
   He made the world to be a grassy road
   Before her wandering feet.

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