William Butler Yeats' 150. Geburtstag

William Butler Yeats (* 13. Juni 1865 in Sandymount bei Dublin; † 28. Januar 1939 in Menton bei Nizza, begraben in Drumcliff, Co. Sligo) war ein irischer Dichter. Er gilt als einer der bedeutendsten englischsprachigen Schriftsteller des 20. Jahrhunderts. 1923 erhielt er als erster Ire den Literaturnobelpreis.

Gedichtbände im Original und deutscher Übersetzung liegen in unserer Bibliothek auf.

Wikipedia

Abbildung aus Wikipedia
(„Yeats Boughton“ von Alice Boughton - Whyte's. Lizenziert unter Gemeinfrei über Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Yeats_Boughton.jpg#/media/File:Yeats_Boughton.jpg)


HE REMEMBERS FORGOTTEN BEAUTY
by: William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

HEN my arms wrap you round I press

My heart upon the loveliness

That has long faded from the world;

The jewelled crowns that kings have hurled

In shadowy pools, when armies fled;

The love-tales wrought with silken thread

By dreaming ladies upon cloth

That has made fat the murderous moth;

The roses that of old time were

Woven by ladies in their hair,

The dew-cold lilies ladies bore

Through many a sacred corridor

Where such grey clouds of incense rose

That only God's eyes did not close:

For that pale breast and lingering hand

Come from a more dream-heavy land,

A more dream-heavy hour than this;

And when you sigh from kiss to kiss

I hear white Beauty sighing, too,

For hours when all must fade like dew,

But flame on flame, and deep on deep,

Throne over throne where in half sleep,

Their swords upon their iron knees,

Brood her high lonely mysteries.

THE SORROW OF LOVE
by: W.B. Yeats

HE quarrel of the sparrows in the eaves,

The full round moon and the star-laden sky,

And the loud song of the ever-singing leaves,

Had hid away earth's old and weary cry.

 

And then you came with those red mournful lips,

And with you came the whole of the world's tears,

And all the sorrows of her labouring ships,

And all the burden of her myriad years.

 

And now the sparrows warring in the eaves,

The curd-pale moon, the white stars in the sky,

And the loud chaunting of the unquiet leaves

Are shaken with earth's old and weary cry.

WHEN YOU ARE OLD
by: William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

HEN you are old and grey 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.