William Butler Yeats Half Quotations

Half close your eyelids, loosen your hair,And dream about the great and their pride;They have spoken against you everywhere,But weigh this song with the great and their pride;I made it out of a mouthful of air,Their children's children shall say they have lied.

Once more the storm is howling, and half hidUnder this cradle-hood and coverlidMy child sleeps on.

The common breeds the common, A lout begets a lout, So when I take on half a score I knock their heads about.

The old priest Peter Gilligan Was weary night and day; For half his flock were in their beds, Or under green sods lay.

A tree there is that from its topmost bough Is half all glittering flame and half all green Abounding foliage moistened with the dew; And half is half and yet is all the scene; And half and half consume what they renew....

In mockery I have set A powerful emblem up, And sing it rhyme upon rhyme In mockery of a time Half dead at the top.

We have lit upon the gentle, sensitive mind And lost the old nonchalance of the hand; Whether we have chosen chisel, pen or brush, We are but critics, or but half create.

All the great masters have understood that there cannot be great art without the little limited life of the fable, which is always better the simpler it is, and the rich, far-wandering, many-imaged life of the half-seen world beyond it