“In tombs of gold and lapis lazuliBodies of holy men and women exudeMiraculous oil, odour of violet.But under heavy loads of trampled clayLie bodies of the vampires full of blood;Their shrouds are bloody and their lips are wet("Oil and Blood")”

“As I thought of these things, I drew aside the curtains and looked out into the darkness, and it seemed to my troubled fancy that all those little points of light filling the sky were the furnaces of innumerable divine alchemists, who labour continually, turning lead into gold, weariness into ecstasy, bodies into souls, the darkness into God; and at their perfect labour my mortality grew heavy, and I cried out, as so many dreamers and men of letters in our age have cried, for the birth of that elaborate spiritual beauty which could alone uplift souls weighted with so many dreams.”

“From man's blood-sodden heart are sprungThose branches of the night and dayWhere the gaudy moon is hung.What's the meaning of all song?"Let all things pass away.”

“Before The World Was MadeIf I make the lashes darkand the eyes more brightand the lips more scarlet,or ask if all be rightfrom mirror after mirror,no vanity's displayed:I'm looking for the face I hadbefore the world was made.What if I look upon a manas though on my beloved,and my blood be cold the whileand my heart unmoved?Why should he think me cruelor that he is betrayed?I'd have him love the thing that wasbefore the world was made.”

“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.”

“What is literature but the expression of moods by the vehicle of symbol and incident? And are there not moods which need heaven, hell, purgatory, and faeryland for their expression, no less than this dilapidated earth? Nay, are there not moods which shall find no expression unless there be men who dare to mix heaven, hell, purgatory, and faeryland together, or even to set the heads of beasts to the bodies of men, or to thrust the souls of men into the heart of rocks? Let us go forth, the tellers of tales, and seize whatever prey the heart long for, and have no fear. Everything exists, everything is true, and the earth is only a little dust under our feet." (A Teller of Tales)”

“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 Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand; 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 Wind 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?”