A Poet to His Beloved: The Early Love Poems of W.B.Yeats

Product Information

The Winding Stair (poetry), Fountain Press, 1929, enlarged edition, Macmillan, 1933 , expanded edition, Cornell University Press, 1995. The wandering earth herself may be, Only a sudden flaming word, In clanging space a moment heard, Troubling the endless reverie.” As Yeats aged, he saw Ireland change in ways that angered him. The Anglo-Irish Protestant minority no longer controlled Irish society and culture, and with Lady Gregory’s death in 1932 and the abandonment of the Coole Park estate, Yeats felt detached from the brilliant achievements of the 18th Anglo-Irish tradition. According to Yeats’s unblushingly antidemocratic view, the greatness of Anglo-Irishmen such as Jonathan Swift, philosopher George Berkeley, and statesman Edmund Burke, contrasted sharply with the undistinguished commonness of contemporary Irish society, which seemed preoccupied with the interests of merchants and peasants. He laid out his unpopular opinions in late plays such as Purgatory(1938) and the essays of On the Boiler(1939). I have believed the best of every man. And find that to believe is enough to make a bad man show him at his best, or even a good man swings his lantern higher.”

What was it like to be an Irish soldier fighting for Britain in the First World War, but to be an Irishman longing for independence from the British? This conflict is the focus of this soliloquy, one of Yeats’s finest poems about the fight for Irish independence during, and just after, WWI. The Wild Swans at Coole (poetry and plays; includes play At the Hawk's Well, first performed privately in London, April 2, 1916, produced in Dublin at Abbey Theatre, July 25, 1933), Cuala Press, 1917, enlarged edition, Macmillan, 1919, expanded edition, Cornell University Press, 1994. Stanley, Michael, Famous Dubliners: W. B. Yeats, James Joyce, Jonathan Swift, Wolfe Tone, Oscar Wilde, Edward Carson, Wolfhound Press (Dublin, Ireland), 1996. The Variorum Edition of the Poems of W. B. Yeats, edited by Peter Allt and Russell K. Alspach, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1957, reprinted, 1987.Howes, Marjorie Elizabeth, Yeats' Nations: Gender, Class, and Irishness, Cambridge University Press, 1997. The rhyme-words from the first stanza recur in the last, emphasising the change of tone. The eaves are still "clamorous," but the moon is "climbing upon an empty sky" (my italics). "Clamorous" and "climbing" seem to intensify the upwards-striving movement; in fact, the near-homonym, "clambering," is additionally suggested by "clamorous". The same powerful epithet, creating a similar combination of sound and movement, will recur in "The Wild Swans at Coole" when the birds "All suddenly mount / And scatter wheeling in great broken rings / Upon their clamorous wings." Published in 1928, ‘Sailing to Byzantium’ symbolises a spiritual journey to Byzantium, which Yeats saw as “centre of European civilization and the source of its spiritual philosophy”.

MORE ON POETRY: Our guide to the best Irish poets of all time. Notable mentions Credit: geograph.ie / Albert Bridge I whispered, 'I am too young,' and then, 'I am old enough'; wherefore I threw a penny to find out if I might love.” Those words that end three of the four long stanzas that make up ‘Easter 1916’, with each new repetition of them changing them slightly. ‘All changed, changed utterly’. For among other things, ‘Easter 1916’ is about the tension between change and permanence, steadfastness and flexibilityDestiny ’ references how the beauty in the world, a flower, a path, can be lost through loss of love and grief. It’s about a love so intense that it undermines heaven on earth. Adams, Hazard, The Book of Yeats' Vision: Romantic Modernism and Antithetical Tradition, University of Michigan Press, 1995. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild. With a fairy, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand." A line will take us hours maybe; Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought, our stitching and unstitching has been naught.” Written as a conflicted epitaph, Yeats remembers the Easter Rising leaders as martyrs while also rejecting the violence of the uprising. The poem ends with one of Yeats’ most powerful lines, “All changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.” 7. Leda and the Swan – based on Irish mythology Credit: commons.wikimedia.org

Growing older, feeling out of touch with the new generation superseding you, feeling surplus to requirements, waiting for death. These are, perhaps, inevitable thoughts once we reach a certain age: they certainly came to Yeats in his later years, and he frequently wrote about growing old. This is partly what ‘Sailing to Byzantium’ is about. Instead, his allegiance is to his Kiltartan Cross, a small parish in the county of Galway in Ireland, a remote part of the British ‘empire’ which is unlikely to be greatly troubled by the war: this Irish airman’s sacrifice (or heroic victories) matter little to the ‘poor’ of Kiltartan, who are likely to remain poor whatever happens in the mighty clash of empires that was the First World War. The Hour Glass and Other Plays (includes The Hour Glass: A Morality and The Pot of Broth, first produced in Dublin at Antient Concert Rooms, October 30, 1902), Macmillan, 1904.It is so many years before one can believe enough in what one feels even to know what the feeling is.” Isle of Innisfree is an uninhabited island within Lough Gill, in County Sligo, Ireland, where Yeats spent his summers as a child. In this short poem of three stanzas of four lines, the speaker, who is residing in an urban city, yearns to return to the peace and serenity of Innisfree. The poem is notable as being a famous work of the Irish Literary Revival movement which aimed to create distinct art and literature that was Irish in origin rather than one that adhered to the standards set by the English. Lake Isle of Innisfree was critically acclaimed when it was published. It remains one of the best known poems of Yeats with multiple references to it being made in popular culture over the years. Gonne was an Irish Nationalist and an active campaigner for the release of political prisoners in Ireland. She was outspoken and passionate about Irish politics. Despite being raised in France, Gonne was well aware of events in her homeland. Yeats had fallen madly in love

W. B. Yeats, The Autobiography of William Butler Yeats, consisting of Reveries over childhood and youth, The trembling of the veil, and Dramatis personae (New York 1938). W. B. Yeats wrote ‘Sailing to Byzantium’ in 1927, when he was in his early sixties, and published a year later in The Tower. The poem is about renouncing the hold of the world upon us, and attaining something higher than the physical or sensual. Plays in Prose and Verse, Written for an Irish Theatre (includes The Player Queen, first produced in London at King's Hall, May 25, 1919), Macmillan, 1922. Verses and quotes by Yeats have been turned into inspirational quotes by readers. The Irish icon William Butler Yeats poems about love are veru romantic. A love poetry Yeats wrote ‘Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven’ included - “I have spread my dreams beneath your feet. Tread softly because you tread on my dreams”. These are the best W. B. Yeats love quotes and poems. The Golden Helmet (play; first produced in Dublin at Abbey Theatre, March 19, 1908), John Quinn, 1908, revised as The Green Helmet (produced in Dublin at Abbey Theatre, February 10, 1910), published in The Green Helmet and Other Poems (also see below).Themes in this poem include growing older, mortality, and conflicts between a younger and older generation. 1. The Stolen Child – the loss of innocence Irish poets are renowned for the ability to tell a good story in the most beautiful way. Let’s take a look at some of the most romantic Irish poems. Mosada: A Dramatic Poem (first published in Dublin University Review, March, 1885), Sealy, Bryers & Walker, 1886. We have in this list William Butler Yeats quotes, WB Yeats quotes, Yeats friends quotes, quotes about WB Yeats, WB Yeats quotes, WB Yeats love poems, perfect for all Yeats fans. Purdy, Dwight H., Biblical Echo and Allusion in the Poetry of W. B. Yeats: Poetics and the Art of God, Associated University Presses, 1994.