Index to First Lines

Table of contents

• A certain poet in outlandish clothes
• A crazy man that found a cup
• A cursing rogue with a merry face
• A doll in the doll-maker’s house
• A living man is blind and drinks his drop
• A man came slowly from the setting sun
• A mermaid found a swimming lad
• A pity beyond all telling
• A speckled cat and a tame hare
• A storm-beaten old watch-tower
• A strange thing surely that my Heart, when love had come unsought
• A sudden blow; the great wings beating still
• Acquaintance; companion
• Ah, that Time could touch a form
• All the heavy days are over
• All things can tempt me from this craft of verse
• All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old
• Although crowds gathered once if she but showed her face
• Although I can see him still
• ‘Although I’d lie lapped up in linen
• Although I shelter from the rain
• Although you hide in the ebb and flow
• An affable Irregular
• An ancient bridge, and a more ancient tower
• An old man cocked his ear upon a bridge
• And thus declared that Arab lady
• As I came over Windy Gap
• Autumn is over the long leaves that love us
• Bald heads forgetful of their sins
• Be you still, be you still, trembling heart
• Because to-day is some religious festival
• Behold that great Plotinus swim
• Being out of heart with government
• Beloved, gaze in thine own heart
• Beloved, may your sleep be sound
• Between extremities
• Bid a strong ghost stand at the head
• Blessed be this place
• Bolt and bar the shutter
• Bring me to the blasted oak
• Bring where our Beauty lies
• ‘Call down the hawk from the air
• Come, let me sing into your ear
• Come play with me
• Come praise Colonus’ horses, and come praise
• Come round me, little childer
• Crazed through much child-bearing
• Cumhal called out, bending his head
• Dance there upon the shore
• Dear Craoibhin Aoibhin, look into our case
• Dear fellow-artist, why so free
• Dear, I must be gone
• Do not because this day I have grown saturnine
• Do you not hear me calling, white deer with no horns?
• Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet
• Dry timber under that rich foliage
• Earth in beauty dressed
• Edain came out of Midhir’s hill, and lay
• Endure what life God gives and ask no longer span
• Far-off, most secret, and inviolate Rose
• Fasten your hair with a golden pin
• Five-and-twenty years have gone
• Fled foam underneath us, and round us, a wandering and milky smoke
• For certain minutes at the least
• For one throb of the artery
• God grant a blessing on this tower and cottage
• Good Father John O’Hart
• Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths
• Half close your eyelids, loosen your hair
• Hands, do what you’re bid
• Has he not led us into these waste seas
• Has no one said those daring
• Having inherited a vigorous mind
• He stood among a crowd at Drumahair
• Hidden by old age awhile
• Hope that you may understand!
• How should the world be luckier if this house
• Hurry to bless the hands that play
• I admit the briar
• ‘I am of Ireland
• I am worn out with dreams
• I asked if I should pray
• I bade, because the wick and oil are spent
• I bring you with reverent hands
• I care not what the sailors say
• I climb to the tower-top and lean upon broken stone
• I cried when the moon was murmuring to the birds
• I did the dragon’s will until you came
• I dreamed, as in my bed I lay
• I dreamed that I stood in a valley, and amid sighs
• I dreamed that one had died in a strange place
• I found that ivory image there
• I had this thought a while ago
• I hardly hear the curlew cry
• I have drunk ale from the Country of the Young
• I have heard the pigeons of the Seven Woods
• I have met them at close of day
• I have old women’s secrets now
• I have no happiness in dreaming of Brycelinde
• I have pointed out the yelling pack
• I hear the Shadowy Horses, their long manes a-shake
• I heard the old, old men say
• I know, although when looks meet
• I know that I shall meet my fate
• I made my song a coat
• I meditate upon a swallow’s flight
• I met the Bishop on the road
• I passed along the water’s edge below the humid trees
• I, proclaiming that there is
• I ranted to the knave and fool
• I rise in the dawn, and I kneel and blow
• I sat on cushioned otter-skin
• I saw a staring virgin stand
• I summon to the winding ancient stair
• I swayed upon the gaudy stern
• I, the poet William Yeats
• I think it better that in times like these
• I thought no more was needed
• I thought of your beauty, and this arrow
• I walk through the long schoolroom questioning
• I walked among the seven woods of Coole
• I wander by the edge
• I went out alone
• I went out to the hazel wood
• I whispered, ‘I am too young’
• I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree
• I would be ignorant as the dawn
• I would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea
• If any man drew near
• If I make the lashes dark
• If Michael, leader of God’s host
• If this importunate heart trouble your peace
• If you have revisited the town, thin Shade
• If you, that have grown old, were the first dead
• In tombs of gold and lapis lazuli
• Indignant at the fumbling wits, the obscure spite
• King Eochaid came at sundown to a wood
• Know, that I would accounted be
• Kusta ben Luka is my name, I write
• Laughter not time destroyed my voice
• ‘Lay me in a cushioned chair
• Like the moon her kindness is
• Locke sank into a swoon
• ‘Love is all
• Many ingenious lovely things are gone
• May God be praised for woman
• Midnight has come, and the great Christ Church Bell
• Much did I rage when young
• My dear, my dear, I know
• My great-grandfather spoke to Edmund Burke
• My mother dandled me and sang
• Never give all the heart, for love
• ‘Never shall a young man
• Never until this night have I been stirred
• Nor dread nor hope attend
• Now all the truth is out
• Now as at all times I can see in the mind’s eye
• Now, man of croziers, shadows called our names
• Now must I these three praise
• Now that we’re almost settled in our house
• O bid me mount and sail up there
• O but there is wisdom
• O but we talked at large before
• O cloud-pale eyelids, dream-dimmed eyes
• ‘O cruel death, give three things back’
• O curlew, cry no more in the air
• O heart, be at peace, because
• O hurry where by water among the trees
• O sweet everlasting Voices, be still
• O thought, fly to her when the end of day
• O what to me the little room
• O women, kneeling by your altar-rails long hence
• ‘O words are lightly spoken’
• O’Driscoll drove with a song
• Old fathers, great-grandfathers
• On Cruachan’s plain slept he
• On the grey rock of Cashel the mind’s eye
• On the grey sand beside the shallow stream
• Once more the storm is howling, and half hid
• Once, when midnight smote the air
• One had a lovely face
• One that is ever kind said yesterday
• Opinion is not worth a rush
• Others because you did not keep
• Out-worn heart, in a time out-worn
• Overcome—O bitter sweetness
• Pale brows, still hands and dim hair
• Pardon, great enemy
• Pardon, old fathers, if you still remain
• Poets with whom I learned my trade
• Pour wine and dance if manhood still have pride
• ‘Put off that mask of burning gold
• Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!
• Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World!
• Sang old Tom the lunatic
• Sang Solomon to Sheba
• Send peace on all the lands and flickering corn
• Shakespearean fish swam the sea, far away from land
• She has not grown uncivil
• She hears me strike the board and say
• She is foremost of those that I would hear praised
• She is playing like a child
• She lived in storm and strife
• She might, so noble from head
• She that but little patience knew
• ‘She will change,’ I cried
• Shy one, shy one
• Sickness brought me this
• Some may have blamed you that you took away
• Speech after long silence; it is right
• Stand up and lift your hand and bless
• Suddenly I saw the cold and rook-delighting heaven
• Surely among a rich man’s flowering lawns
• Sweetheart, do not love too long
• Swift has sailed into his rest
• That cry’s from the first cuckoo of the year
• That is no country for old men
• That lover of a night
• The angels are stooping
• The bees build in the crevices
• The brawling of a sparrow in the eaves
• The cat went here and there
• The Danaan children laugh, in cradles of wrought gold
• The dews drop slowly and dreams gather: unknown spears
• The fascination of what’s difficult
• The Heavenly Circuit; Berenice’s Hair
• The heron-billed pale cattle-birds
• The host is riding from Knocknarea
• The intellect of man is forced to choose
• The island dreams under the dawn
• The jester walked in the garden
• The light of evening, Lissadell
• The lot of love is chosen. I learnt that much
• The moments passed as at a play
• The old brown thorn-trees break in two high over Cummen Strand
• The old priest Peter Gilligan
• The Powers whose name and shape no living creature knows
• The threefold terror of love; a fallen flare
• The trees are in their autumn beauty
• The true faith discovered was
• The unpurged images of day recede
• The woods of Arcady are dead
• There is a queen in China, or maybe it’s in Spain
• There is grey in your hair
• There’s many a strong farmer
• There was a green branch hung with many a bell
• There was a man whom Sorrow named his friend
• There where the course is
• These are the clouds about the fallen sun
• They hold their public meetings where
• They must to keep their certainty accuse
• Things out of perfection sail
• This great purple butterfly
• This night has been so strange that it seemed
• This whole day have I followed in the rocks
• ‘Those Platonists are a curse,’ he said
• Though leaves are many, the root is one
• ‘Though logic-choppers rule the town
• Though nurtured like the sailing moon
• Though the great song return no more
• ‘Though to my feathers in the wet
• Though you are in your shining days
• Three old hermits took the air
• Through intricate motions ran
• Through winter-time we call on spring
• Time drops in decay
• ‘Time to put off the world and go somewhere
• Toil and grow rich
• Turning and turning in the widening gyre
• Two heavy trestles, and a board
• Under my window-ledge the waters race
• Undying love to buy
• Was it the double of my dream
• We have cried in our despair
• We sat together at one summer’s end
• We sat under an old thorn-tree
• We should be hidden from their eyes
• We that have done and thought
• We who are old, old and gay
• Were you but lying cold and dead
• ‘What do you make so fair and bright?’
• ‘What have I earned for all that work,’ I said
• What lively lad most pleasured me
• What need you, being come to sense
• What’s riches to him
• What shall I do with this absurdity
• What they undertook to do
• When all works that have
• When have I last looked on
• When her soul flies to the predestined dancing-place
• When I play on my fiddle in Dooney
• When my arms wrap you round I press
• When the flaming lute-thronged angelic door is wide
• When you are old and grey and full of sleep
• Where dips the rocky highland
• Where got I that truth?
• Where had her sweetness gone?
• Where has Maid Quiet gone to
• Where, where but here have Pride and Truth
• While I, from that reed-throated whisperer
• While I wrought out these fitful Danaan rhymes
• Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?
• Who talks of Plato’s spindle
• Who will go drive with Fergus now
• Wine comes in at the mouth
• With the old kindness, the old distinguished grace
• Would I could cast a sail on the water
• ‘Would it were anything but merely voice!’
• Why should I blame her that she filled my days
• You gave, but will not give again
• You say, as I have often given tongue
• You waves, though you dance by my feet like children at play
• You who are bent, and bald, and blind
• ‘Your eyes that once were never weary of mine
• Your hooves have stamped at the black margin of the wood

More by Yeats

• Crossways
• The Rose
• The Winding Stair
• Narrative Poems
• Wild Swans

Other Poetry classics

• Bibliomania Love Poetry — Collections
• The Odyssey of Homer — William Cowper
• Poetical Sketches — William Blake
• Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam — Omar Khayyam
• Ballad of Reading Gaol — Oscar Wilde
• Canterbury Tales — Geoffrey Chaucer