The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
‘Easter, 1916’
I see a schoolboy when I think of him
With face and nose pressed to a sweet-shop window,
For certainly he sank into his grave
His senses and his heart unsatisfied,
And made—being poor, ailing and ignorant,
Shut out from all the luxury of the world,
The ill-bred son of a livery stable-keeper—
Luxuriant song.
‘Ego Dominus Tuus’ (referring to Keats)
The fascination of what’s difficult
Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent
Spontaneous joy and natural content
Out of my heart.
‘The Fascination of What’s Difficult’
Never to have lived is best, ancient writers say;
Never to have drawn the breath of life, never to have looked into the eye of day;
The second best’s a gay goodnight and quickly turn away.
‘From Oedipus at Colonus’.
The ghost of Roger Casement
Is beating on the door.
‘The Ghost of Roger Casement’
I mourn for that most lonely thing; and yet God’s will be done,
I knew a phoenix in my youth so let them have their day.
‘His Phoenix’
The light of evening, Lissadell,
Great windows open to the south,
Two girls in silk kimonos, both
Beautiful, one a gazelle.
‘In Memory of Eva Gore Booth and Con Markiewicz’
The innocent and the beautiful
Have no enemy but time.
‘In Memory of Eva Gore Booth and Con Markiewicz’
Out-worn heart, in a time out-worn,
Come clear of the nets of wrong and right;
Laugh, heart, again in the gray twilight;
Sigh, heart, again in the dew of morn.