“Cuchulain stirred,Stared on the horses of the sea, and heardThe cars of battle and his own name cried;And fought with the invulnerable tide.”

“There was a man whom Sorrow named his Friend,And he, of his high comrade Sorrow dreaming,Went walking with slow steps along the gleamingAnd humming Sands, where windy surges wend:And he called loudly to the stars to bendFrom their pale thrones and comfort him, but theyAmong themselves laugh on and sing alway:And then the man whom Sorrow named his friendCried out, Dim sea, hear my most piteous story.!The sea Swept on and cried her old cry still,Rolling along in dreams from hill to hill.He fled the persecution of her gloryAnd, in a far-off, gentle valley stopping,Cried all his story to the dewdrops glistening.But naught they heard, for they are always listening,The dewdrops, for the sound of their own dropping.And then the man whom Sorrow named his friendSought once again the shore, and found a shell,And thought, I will my heavy story tellTill my own words, re-echoing, shall sendTheir sadness through a hollow, pearly heart;And my own talc again for me shall sing,And my own whispering words be comforting,And lo! my ancient burden may depart.Then he sang softly nigh the pearly rim;But the sad dweller by the sea-ways loneChanged all he sang to inarticulate moanAmong her wildering whirls, forgetting him.”

“By the Hospital Lane goes the 'Faeries Path.' Every evening they travel from the hill to the sea, from the sea to the hill. At the sea end of their path stands a cottage. One night Mrs. Arbunathy, who lived there, left her door open, as she was expecting her son. Her husband was asleep by the fire; a tall man came in and sat beside him. After he had been sitting there for a while, the woman said, 'In the name of God, who are you?' He got up and went out, saying, 'Never leave the door open at this hour, or evil may come to you.' She woke her husband and told him. 'One of the good people has been with us,' said he. ("Village Ghosts")”

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot holdMere anarchy is loosed upon the world,The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is lostThe best lack all conviction, while the worst are filled with passionate intensity.”

“There are some doubters even in the western villages. One woman told me last Christmas that she did not believe either in hell or in ghosts. Hell she thought was merely an invention got up by the priest to keep people good; and ghosts would not be permitted, she held, to go 'trapsin about the earth' at their own free will; 'but there are faeries,' she added, 'and little leprechauns, and water-horses, and fallen angels.' I have met also a man with a mohawk Indian tattooed upon his arm, who held exactly similar beliefs and unbeliefs. No matter what one doubts one never doubts the faeries, for, as the man with the mohawk Indian on his arm said to me, 'they stand to reason.' Even the official mind does not escape this faith. ("Reason and Unreason")”

“Then the woman in the bed sat up and looked about her with wild eyes; and the oldest of the old men said: 'Lady, we have come to write down the names of the immortals,’ and at his words a look of great joy came into her face. Presently she, began to speak slowly, and yet eagerly, as though she knew she had but a little while to live, and, in English, with the accent of their own country; and she told them the secret names of the immortals of many lands, and of the colours, and odours, and weapons, and instruments of music and instruments of handicraft they held dearest; but most about the immortals of Ireland and of their love for the cauldron, and the whetstone, and the sword, and the spear, and the hills of the Shee, and the horns of the moon, and the Grey Wind, and the Yellow Wind, and the Black Wind, and the Red Wind. ("The Adoration of the Magi")”

“A mermaid found a swimming lad, Picked him up for her own,Pressed her body to his body,Laughed; and plunging downForgot in cruel happinessThat even lovers drown.”