Poetry by W. B. Yeats

Three poems by William Butler Yeats.

He tells of the perfect Beauty

O cloud-pale eyelids, dream-dimmed eyes,
The poets labouring all their days
To build a perfect beauty in rhyme
Are overthrown by a woman's gaze
And by the unlabouring brood of the skies:
And therefore my heart will bow, when dew
Is dropping sleep, until God burn time,
Before the unlabouring stars and you.

(from The Wind Among the Reeds, 1899)

The Lover pleads with his Friend for Old Friends

Though you are in your shining days,
Voices among the crowd
And new friends busy with your praise,
Be not unkind or proud,
But think about old friends the most:
Time's bitter flood will rise,
Your beauty perish and be lost
For all eyes but these eyes.

(from The Wind Among the Reeds, 1899)

He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

(from The Wind Among the Reeds, 1899)

Collected Works: Volume I: The Poems (1989), ed. Richard J. Finneran, ## 63, 70, 74.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 03/11/04 06:55:32 AM
Categorized as Literary.