There is more boldness in walking nude.
In the imagination, there is a revelation of the self to itself.
Let the little genius walks and have a good time, the spirit of the little genius is never on holidays.
I have seen a lot of men ruined by the desire to have a wife and children than through alcohol and debauchery.
When a man settles in a corner with his work, he gives up as much life as he gains knowledge.
There is nothing worse than the intellectual hate.
Empty souls are attracted by extremists opinion.
In dreams, responsibility starts.
Innocence and beauty have only time for enemy.
Educating is not filling up a vase, it is burning a fire.
Walk slowly because you are walking on my dreams.
The spirit has the right to choose, between improving life or the task.
Friends it seems we all love Yeats.
I’m impressed by your comments and analysis of his work (Telma, Savita) and i enjoy finding more and more things in common with you all. He most definitely was a brilliant man whose heart has touch ours beyond the physical realm.
Demon est Deus inversus also had a good sense of humour :
‘Has your alchemical research
had any success?’ I said.
‘Yes, I once made the elixir of life. A French alchemist said it had the right smell and the right colour,but the first effect of the elixir is that your nails fall out and your hair falls off. I was afraid that I might have made a mistake and that nothing else might happen, so I put it away on a shelf.
I meant to drink it when I was an old man, but when I got it down the other day it had all dried up.’
Savita, I have a Sphinx in my garden - should I be worried? :-D
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.
- William Bulter Yates
So.. So.. Beautiful to love like this.. Con only wish to have this one day :)
“That is no county for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
–Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowed seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.”
William Butler Yeats’s mythology, from which arises the distilled symbolism of his great period, is not always easy to understand, nor did Yeats intend its full meaning to be immediately apparent to those unfamiliar with his thought and the tradition in which he worked. His own cyclic view of history suggested to him a recurrence and convergence of images, so that they become multiplied and enriched; and this progressive enrichment may be traced throughout his work. Among Yeats’s dominant images are Leda and the Swan; Helen and the burning of Troy; the Tower in its many forms; the sun and moon; the burning house; cave, thorn tree, and well; eagle, heron, sea gull, and hawk; blind man, lame man, and beggar; unicorn and phoenix; and horse, hound, and boar. Yet these traditional images are continually validated by their alignment with Yeats’s own personal experience, and it is this that gives them their peculiarly vital quality. In Yeats’s verse they are often shaped into a strong and proud rhetoric and into the many poetic tones of which he was the master. All are informed by the two qualities which Yeats valued and which he retained into old age—passion and joy.
‘But, I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams’.
For me this is perfection in poetry and so romantic!
LOVE,
Thelma
I felt I should clarify, because when I re-read my post it sounded a bit like I meant to refer to Egypt (symbolized by the Sphynx) as “evil.” Nothing could be further from my intention, and I don’t think Yates intended to imply that either. The term “Spiritus Mundi,” used in his poem to refer to the Sphynx, means literally, “World-Spirit” a term which Yeats used to convey his belief that each individual mind is connected to a sort of collective or universal mind, similar to the “collective unconscious” proposed by Carl Jung. So, what Yates was speaking of, at the world’s end, is this image of the collective spirit of humankind laughing at its own destruction, in a sense. The Sphynx did not, for Yates, symbolize any one people or civilization.
Yeats in his more prophetic voice wrote this poem, which is among my favorites of his work:
THE SECOND COMING
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Not only in this poem, but also elsewhere in his writings, does Yates speak of the Sphynx as the beast of destruction at the world’s end. He himself expressed a certain degree of wonder at this, as though he didn’t fully understand himself where and from what source this dreadful metaphor crept into his work. In the introduction to his play “The Ressurection” he wrote of the Sphynx, “I began to imagine [around 1904], as always at my left side just out of the range of sight, a brazen winged beast which I associated with laughing, ecstatic destruction” [and which I] “afterwards described in my poem ‘The Second Coming’.”
The element that I find alluring in Yates poem, the second coming, is the degree and intensity of the prophetic voice he assumes - a voice which, like that of T.S. Eliot, another of my favorite poets, has a certain unarguable authority to it. This voice lends a certain haunting power to his words, not unlike that conveyed by the Biblical prophets of old.
I really think that Yates, like Eliot, was not just another poet - not simply and educated juggler of words. He was an intuitive, a man intimately in touch with wellsprings deep within his own spirit. He was more than just an intellectual; he was primarily, and above all, an intuitive.
I’m still working on deciphering that French, sido! Thanks for sharing.
The Warrior of Light knows the the old Arabic proverb that says: “God judges a tree by its fruits and not by its roots.”
(Manual of the Warrior of Light) Paulo Coelho
Great photo of William yates!
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I love Yeats’ THE SECOND COMING .
In fact a line from the poem is an inspiration for the title of Chinua Achebe’s THINGS FALL APART.
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Very Intense pic. Was he blind? In that case, it is better, coz that made him a visionary poet……
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Translation of W. Butler Yeats
There is more boldness in walking nude.
In the imagination, there is a revelation of the self to itself.
Let the little genius walks and have a good time, the spirit of the little genius is never on holidays.
I have seen a lot of men ruined by the desire to have a wife and children than through alcohol and debauchery.
When a man settles in a corner with his work, he gives up as much life as he gains knowledge.
There is nothing worse than the intellectual hate.
Empty souls are attracted by extremists opinion.
In dreams, responsibility starts.
Innocence and beauty have only time for enemy.
Educating is not filling up a vase, it is burning a fire.
Walk slowly because you are walking on my dreams.
The spirit has the right to choose, between improving life or the task.
[Reply]
A picture can be worth a thousand words. The face behind the lyric often goes unnoticed. Thanks for posting his pic.
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Just a quick observation..
Friends it seems we all love Yeats.
I’m impressed by your comments and analysis of his work (Telma, Savita) and i enjoy finding more and more things in common with you all. He most definitely was a brilliant man whose heart has touch ours beyond the physical realm.
Thank you for being
Yajna
[Reply]
Demon est Deus inversus also had a good sense of humour :
‘Has your alchemical research
had any success?’ I said.
‘Yes, I once made the elixir of life. A French alchemist said it had the right smell and the right colour,but the first effect of the elixir is that your nails fall out and your hair falls off. I was afraid that I might have made a mistake and that nothing else might happen, so I put it away on a shelf.
I meant to drink it when I was an old man, but when I got it down the other day it had all dried up.’
Savita, I have a Sphinx in my garden - should I be worried? :-D
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Dearest Paulo and friends..
One of my absolute favourites:
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.
- William Bulter Yates
So.. So.. Beautiful to love like this.. Con only wish to have this one day :)
Thank you for being
Yajna
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I love this idea of poets, my dear Coelho!! brilliant! this way we can have a glimpse to beautiful people who left their mark here on Earth
Love and Graditude
Annie
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Thelma, that too is one of my favorites…
serious thanks for the reminder.
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SAILING TO BYZANTIUM
“That is no county for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
–Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowed seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.”
[Reply]
William Butler Yeats’s mythology, from which arises the distilled symbolism of his great period, is not always easy to understand, nor did Yeats intend its full meaning to be immediately apparent to those unfamiliar with his thought and the tradition in which he worked. His own cyclic view of history suggested to him a recurrence and convergence of images, so that they become multiplied and enriched; and this progressive enrichment may be traced throughout his work. Among Yeats’s dominant images are Leda and the Swan; Helen and the burning of Troy; the Tower in its many forms; the sun and moon; the burning house; cave, thorn tree, and well; eagle, heron, sea gull, and hawk; blind man, lame man, and beggar; unicorn and phoenix; and horse, hound, and boar. Yet these traditional images are continually validated by their alignment with Yeats’s own personal experience, and it is this that gives them their peculiarly vital quality. In Yeats’s verse they are often shaped into a strong and proud rhetoric and into the many poetic tones of which he was the master. All are informed by the two qualities which Yeats valued and which he retained into old age—passion and joy.
‘But, I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams’.
For me this is perfection in poetry and so romantic!
LOVE,
Thelma
[Reply]
I felt I should clarify, because when I re-read my post it sounded a bit like I meant to refer to Egypt (symbolized by the Sphynx) as “evil.” Nothing could be further from my intention, and I don’t think Yates intended to imply that either. The term “Spiritus Mundi,” used in his poem to refer to the Sphynx, means literally, “World-Spirit” a term which Yeats used to convey his belief that each individual mind is connected to a sort of collective or universal mind, similar to the “collective unconscious” proposed by Carl Jung. So, what Yates was speaking of, at the world’s end, is this image of the collective spirit of humankind laughing at its own destruction, in a sense. The Sphynx did not, for Yates, symbolize any one people or civilization.
Thanks!
Savita
[Reply]
Yeats in his more prophetic voice wrote this poem, which is among my favorites of his work:
THE SECOND COMING
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Not only in this poem, but also elsewhere in his writings, does Yates speak of the Sphynx as the beast of destruction at the world’s end. He himself expressed a certain degree of wonder at this, as though he didn’t fully understand himself where and from what source this dreadful metaphor crept into his work. In the introduction to his play “The Ressurection” he wrote of the Sphynx, “I began to imagine [around 1904], as always at my left side just out of the range of sight, a brazen winged beast which I associated with laughing, ecstatic destruction” [and which I] “afterwards described in my poem ‘The Second Coming’.”
The element that I find alluring in Yates poem, the second coming, is the degree and intensity of the prophetic voice he assumes - a voice which, like that of T.S. Eliot, another of my favorite poets, has a certain unarguable authority to it. This voice lends a certain haunting power to his words, not unlike that conveyed by the Biblical prophets of old.
I really think that Yates, like Eliot, was not just another poet - not simply and educated juggler of words. He was an intuitive, a man intimately in touch with wellsprings deep within his own spirit. He was more than just an intellectual; he was primarily, and above all, an intuitive.
I’m still working on deciphering that French, sido! Thanks for sharing.
Sincerely,
Savita
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Well,some of his poems I do read.I think he is sort of late romantic.
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“Tread softly because you tread on my dreams”
“Song, let them take it,
For there’s more enterprise in walking naked!”
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Quelques citations de William Butler Yeats:
«Il y a plus d’audace à marcher nu.»
[ William Butler Yeats ] - Le manteau
«Dans l’imagination, il y a une révélation du Moi à lui-même.»
[ William Butler Yeats ] - Le flambeau de la vision
«Laissez le petit génie faire son chemin et prendre du bon temps ; l’esprit du grand génie n’est jamais en vacance.»
«J’ai vu beaucoup plus d’hommes ruinés par le désir d’avoir une femme et des enfants que par l’alcool et la débauche.»
«Lorsqu’un homme s’installe avec un travail dans un coin, il abandonne autant de vie qu’il acquiert de connaissance.»
«Il n’y a rien de pire que la haine de l’intellectuel.»
«Les âmes vides sont attirées par les opinions extrémistes.»
«Dans les rêves commence la responsabilité.»
«L’innocence et la beauté n’ont d’ennemi que le temps.»
«Eduquer ce n’est pas remplir un vase, c’est allumer un feu.»
«Marchez doucement car vous marcher sur mes rêves.»
«Obligation à l’esprit de choisir, entre perfectionner l’existence ou l’oeuvre.»
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