William Butler Yeats. 153 years of the great Irish poet. 6 poems

William Butler Yeats is one of the greatest poets of Ireland and today is his . He was also a playwright and one of the most representative figures of the Irish literary renaissance. He was also in politics and served as a senator. In 1923 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature. Go 4 of his poems to celebrate his anniversary.

William Butler Yeats

Born in Dublin, when he read his Nobel acceptance speech at the Royal Swedish Academy Yeats declared to do so as banner of Irish nationalism and Irish cultural independence. And it is that the mystical halo that surrounded this author had a lot to do with his interest and praise that made the epic and celtic mythology of their land.

In fact he had contact with the esotericism of the time and was part of the secret order The Golden Dawn, although he later abandoned it. Founded the Abbey Theater and Irish National Theater, which he directed throughout his life, inspired by Celtic traditions and ancient folk legends.

FROM 6 of his poems to remember him or present him to the uninitiated in his work: When you are old, Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?, He remembers the forgotten beauty First love, Give your beloved a few verses y The wine enters the mouth.

6 poems

When you are old

When you're old and gray and tired
and nodding by the fire take this book,
and slowly read, dreaming of the soft gaze
that your eyes once had, with their deep shadows;
how many adored your moments of joyful grace,
and they loved your beauty with false or true love;
but a man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
and loved the sorrows of your changing face.
And leaning against the glow of the logs,
murmur, a little sad, how love fled,
how it floated far over the mountains,
and hid his face among a multitude of stars.

***

Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?

Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?
For these red lips, with all their tired pride,
so sad already, that no wonder they can foretell,
Troy left us with a funereal and violent flash,
and the sons of Usna have abandoned us.

We parade, and the busy world parades with us
Among the souls of men, who say goodbye and give up their place
like the pale waters in their icy race;
Under passing stars, foam from the skies,
keep living this lonely face.

Bow down, archangels, in your gloomy abode:
Before you existed and before any heart beat,
surrendered and kind she stood by his throne;
Beauty made the world a grassy path
so that She would put her wandering feet.

***

He remembers the forgotten beauty

By surrounding you in my arms,
I hold against my heart that beauty
long gone from the world:
set crowns that kings threw
In ghostly wells, fleeing armies;
stories of love woven with silk threads
by dreamy ladies, in fabrics
that nurtured the killer moth:
roses of lost times,
that the ladies braided in their hair;
cold lilies of rain that the maidens carried
through gloomy sacred corridors,
where mists of incense rose
and that only God contemplated:
since the pale chest, the delayed hand,
They come to us from other lands heavier with sleep.
And when you sigh between kisses
I hear the white Beauty also sighing
for that hour when everything
it must be consumed like dew.
But flame upon flame and abyss upon abyss,
and throne upon throne and a half in dreams,
resting their swords on their iron knees,
sadly they brood over great lonely mysteries.

***

First love

Though it was nourished, like the wandering moon,
for the murderous baby of the beautiful,
she walked a little, reddened a little,
and stopped in my way,
until I came to think that her body
it harbored a living, human heart.

But since my hand touched it
and found a heart of stone,
I tried many things
and none of them worked,
since she becomes lunatic
the hand that travels on the moon.

She smiled and thus transformed me,
I became inept
speaking alone, babbling alone,
with the emptier mind
that the celestial circuit of the stars
When the moon is wandering

***

Give your beloved a few verses 

Fasten your hair with a golden hairpin,
and pick up those vagrant braids.
I asked my heart to make these poor verses:
he worked on them day after day
a sad beauty building
with remnants of battles from other times.

Just by lifting the pearl from your hand,
wrap your long hair and sigh,
men's hearts beat and burn;
and the foam like a candle on the opaque sand
and stars soaring the sky with dew,
they only live to illuminate your passing feet.

***

The wine enters the mouth 

The wine enters the mouth
And love enters the eyes;
This is all we really know
Before growing old and dying.
This is how I bring the glass to my mouth,
And I look at you, and I sigh.