Great Throughts Treasury

"What would have shaken from the sieve?"

"Whatever is begotten, born, and dies."

"Whatever flames upon the night Man's own resinous heart has fed."

"When all is said and done, how do we know but that our own unreason may be better than another's truth? For it has been warmed on our hearths and in our souls, and is ready for the wild bees of truth to hive in it, and make their sweet honey."

"What's the use of held note or a held line?"

"When have I last looked on the round green eyes and the long wavering bodies of the dark leopards of the moon? All the wild witches, those most noble ladies, for all their broom-sticks and their tears, their angry tears, are gone."

"When I think of life as struggle with the Daimon who would ever set us to the hardest work among those not impossible, I understand why there is a deep enmity between a man and his destiny, and why a man loves nothing but his destiny."

"When the poor tired child, Passion, falls asleep."

"When I play on my fiddle in Dooney, folk dance like a wave of the sea."

"When one gets quiet, then something wakes up inside one, something happy and quiet like the stars."

"When one looks into the darkness there is always something there... Far-off, most secret, and inviolate Rose, enfold me in my hour of hours; where those who sought thee in the Holy Sepulchre, or in the wine-vat, dwell beyond the stir and tumult of defeated dreams; and deep among pale eyelids, heavy with the sleep men have named beauty. Thy great leaves enfold the ancient beards, the helms of ruby and gold of the crowned Magi; and the king whose eyes saw the pierced Hands and Rood of elder rise in Druid vapour and make the torches dim; till vain frenzy awoke and he died; and him who met Fand walking among flaming dew by a grey shore where the wind never blew, and lost the world and Emer for a kiss; and him who drove the gods out of their liss, and till a hundred morns had flowered red feasted, and wept the barrows of his dead; and the proud dreaming king who flung the crown and sorrow away, and calling bard and clown dwelt among wine-stained wanderers in deep woods: and him who sold tillage, and house, and goods, and sought through lands and islands numberless years, until he found, with laughter and with tears, a woman of so shining loveliness that men threshed corn at midnight by a tress, a little stolen tress. I, too, await the hour of thy great wind of love and hate. When shall the stars be blown about the sky, like the sparks blown out of a smithy, and die? Surely thine hour has come, thy great wind blows, far-off, most secret, and inviolate Rose? Out of sight is out of mind: long have man and woman-kind, heavy of will and light of mood, taken away our wheaten food, taken away our Altar stone; hail and rain and thunder alone, and red hearts we turn to grey, are true till time gutter away... the common people are always ready to blame the beautiful."

"When they had finished they made me take notes of whatever conversation they had quoted, so that I might have the exact words, and got up to go, and when I asked them where they were going and what they were doing and by what names I should call them, they would tell me nothing, except that they had been commanded to travel over Ireland continually, and upon foot and at night, that they might live close to the stones and the trees and at the hours when the immortals are awake."

"When such as I cast out remorse so great a sweetness flows into the breast we must laugh and we must sing, We are blest by everything, Everything we look upon is blest."

"When we bent down above the fading coals."

"When Walt Whitman writes in seeming defiance of tradition, he needs tradition for his protection, for the butcher and the baker and the candlestick-maker grow merry over him when they meet his work by chance."

"When you are old and gray and full of sleep, and nodding by the fire, take down this book, and slowly read, and dream of the soft look your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; how many loved your moments of glad grace, and loved your beauty with love false or true, but one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, and loved the sorrows of your changing face. And bending down beside the glowing bars, murmur, a little sadly, how love fled and paced upon the mountains overhead and hid his face amid a crowd of stars."

"Whence had they come the hand and lash that beat down frigid Rome? What sacred drama through her body heaved when world-transforming Charlemagne was conceived?"

"Where the wave of moonlight glosses the dim gray sands with light, far off by furthest Rosses we foot it all the night, weaving olden dances, mingling hands and mingling glances till the moon has taken flight; to and fro we leap and chase the frothy bubbles, while the world is full of troubles and is anxious in its sleep."

"Where daffodil and lily wave."

"Where dips the rocky highland of Sleuth Wood in the lake, there lies a leafy island where flapping herons wake the drowsy water rats; there we've hid our faery vats, full of berries and of reddest stolen cherries. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild with a faery, hand in hand, for the world's more full of weeping than you can understand."

"Where blood-begotten spirits come."

"Where are now the warring kings?"

"Where there is nothing, there is God."

"Whether under its daylight or its stars."

"While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey."

"While day its burden on to evening bore."

"Whether they knew or not, Goldsmith and Burke, Swift and the Bishop of Cloyne all hated Whiggery; but what is Whiggery? A levelling, rancorous, rational sort of mind that never looked out of the eye of a saint or out of drunkard?s eye."

"While I wrought out these fitful Danaan rhymes."

"Whirls in the old instead."

"While I, that reed-throated whisperer who comes at need, although not now as once a clear articulation in the air, but inwardly, surmise companions beyond the fling of the dull ass?s hoof ?Ben Jonson?s phrase?and find when June is come At Kyle-na-no under that ancient roof a sterner conscience and a friendlier home, I can forgive even that wrong of wrongs, those undreamt accidents that have made me ?seeing that fame has perished that long while, being but a part of ancient ceremony? notorious, till all my priceless things are but a post the passing dogs defile."

"Who are but weasels fighting in a hole."

"Whirls out new right and wrong."

"While slowly he whose hand held hers replied."

"While still I may, I write for you."

"Who called me by my name and ran?"

"Who can distinguish darkness from the soul?"

"Who follow with the optic glass?"

"Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream? For these red lips, with all their mournful pride, mournful that no new wonder may betide, Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam, and Usna's children died."

"Who Goes With Fergus? Who will go drive with Fergus now, and pierce the deep wood's woven shade, and dance upon the level shore? Young man, lift up your russet brow, and lift your tender eyelids, maid, and brood on hopes and fear no more. And no more turn aside and brood upon love's bitter mystery; for Fergus rules the brazen cars, and rules the shadows of the wood, and the white breast of the dim sea and all disheveled wandering stars."

"Who loves you, no white arms to wrap you round."

"Who rise, wing above wing, flame above flame."

"Who sigh with mingled sorrow and content."

"Whose blade compels, and wait till they have found?"

"Why must you blench and shake from foot to crown?"

"Who wastes his blood to be another's dream?"

"Why should I blame her that she filled my days."

"Why should I blame her that she filled my days with misery, or that she would of late have taught to ignorant men most violent ways, or hurled the little streets upon the great, had they but courage equal to desire? What could have made her peaceful with a mind that nobleness made simple as a fire, with beauty like a tightened bow, a kind that is not natural in an age like this, being high and solitary and most stern? Why, what could she have done, being what she is? Was there another Troy for her to burn?"

"Why should we honor those that die upon the field of battle? A man may show as reckless a courage in entering into the abyss of himself."

"Why, what could she have done, being what she is? Was there another Troy for her to burn?"

"Why should you run?"