William Butler Yeats, muitas vezes apenas designado por W.B. Yeats, (Dublin, 13 de junho de 1865 - Menton, França, 28 de janeiro de 1939) foi um poeta, dramaturgo e místico irlandês. Atuou ativamente no Renascimento Literário Irlandês e foi co-fundador do Abbey Theatre.
As suas obras iniciais eram caracterizadas por uma tendência romântica,
exuberante e fantasiosa, que transparece no título da sua coletânea de
1893, The Celtic Twilight ("O Crepúsculo Celta"). Posteriormente, por volta dos seus 40 anos, e como resultado da sua relação com poetas modernistas, como Ezra Pound, e também do seu envolvimento ativo no nacionalismo irlandês, o seu estilo torna-se mais austero e moderno.
Foi também senador irlandês, cargo que exerceu com dedicação e seriedade. Foi galardoado com o Prémio Nobel de Literatura de 1923.
O Comité de entrega do Prémio justificou a sua decisão pela "sua
poesia sempre inspirada, que através de uma forma de elevado nível
artístico dá expressão ao espírito de toda uma nação." Em 1934
compartilhou o Prémio Gothenburg para poesia com Rudyard Kipling.
in Wikipédia
Two Songs of a Fool
I
A speckled cat and a tame hare
Eat at my hearthstone
And sleep there;
And both look up to me alone
For learning and defence
As I look up to Providence.
I start out of my sleep to think
Some day I may forget
Their food and drink;
Or, the house door left unshut,
The hare may run till it’s found
The horn’s sweet note and the tooth of the hound.
I bear a burden that might well try
Men that do all by rule,
And what can I
That am a wandering witted fool
But pray to God that He ease
My great responsibilities?
A speckled cat and a tame hare
Eat at my hearthstone
And sleep there;
And both look up to me alone
For learning and defence
As I look up to Providence.
I start out of my sleep to think
Some day I may forget
Their food and drink;
Or, the house door left unshut,
The hare may run till it’s found
The horn’s sweet note and the tooth of the hound.
I bear a burden that might well try
Men that do all by rule,
And what can I
That am a wandering witted fool
But pray to God that He ease
My great responsibilities?
II
I slept on my three-legged stool by the fire,
The speckled cat slept on my knee;
We never thought to enquire
Where the brown hare might be,
And whether the door were shut.
Who knows how she drank the wind
Stretched up on two legs from the mat,
Before she had settled her mind
To drum with her heel and to leap:
Had I but awakened from sleep
And called her name she had heard,
It may be, and had not stirred,
That now, it may be, has found
The horn’s sweet note and the tooth of the hound.
I slept on my three-legged stool by the fire,
The speckled cat slept on my knee;
We never thought to enquire
Where the brown hare might be,
And whether the door were shut.
Who knows how she drank the wind
Stretched up on two legs from the mat,
Before she had settled her mind
To drum with her heel and to leap:
Had I but awakened from sleep
And called her name she had heard,
It may be, and had not stirred,
That now, it may be, has found
The horn’s sweet note and the tooth of the hound.
William Butler Yeats
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