Even when the poet seems most himself . . . he is never the bundle of accident and incoherence that sits down to breakfast; he has been reborn as an idea, something intended, complete.

All that we did, all that we said or sang must come from contact with the soil.

rhetoric is will doing the work of imagination.

Cast a cold eye on life, on death Horseman pass by

The soul of man is of the imperishable substance of the stars!

I have read somewhere that in the Emperor's palace at Byzantium was a tree made of gold and silver, and artificial birds that sang.

Never shall a young man, Thrown into despair By those great honey-coloured Ramparts at your ear, Love you for yourself alone And not your yellow hair.