The submitted paper deals with the analysis of metaphors in W. B. Yeats’s poetry. Yeatsian metaphors are analyzed through the prism of esoteric motif of universalism. The author considers universalism as the philosophical principle of interaction between the Material and the Ideal, the Visible and the Invisible. The universalist metaphors can be divided – with a degree of acceptable approximation – into materializing and de-materializing ones. The materializing metaphor is based on the objectification technique, which implies that the abstract object is replaced with the concrete one. The things objectified by Yeats can be subsequently divided into five groups according to the increase in the degree of abstraction and the gradual removal of the ‘individual’ and the ‘daily-routine’ semantic hues. The de-materializing metaphor reflects the opposite process: the concrete objects are compared to the spiritual ones – getting closer to the universe of non-cognizable. The poet allows both types of metaphors to interrelate creating the meaningful ambivalence of the poetic context.