Selected Poems And Four Plays

by Rosenthal, M.l.; Yeats, William Butler

• ISBN13: 9780684826462
• ISBN10: 0684826461
• eBook ISBN(s): 9781451673753
• Edition: 4th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-09-09
• Publisher: Scribner
• More Book Details

Summary

Since its first appearance in 1962, M. L. Rosenthal's classic selection of Yeats's poems and plays has attracted hundreds of thousands of readers. This newly revised edition includes 211 poems and 4 plays. It addsThe Words Upon the Window-Pane,one of Yeats's most startling dramatic works in its realistic use of a seance as the setting for an eerily powerful reenactment of Jonathan Swift's rigorous idealism, baffling love relationships, and tragic madness. The collection profits from recent scholarship that has helped to establish Yeats's most reliable texts, in the order set by the poet himself. And his powerful lyrical sequences are amply represented, culminating in the selection fromLast Poems and Two Plays,which reaches its climax in the brilliant poetic playsThe Death of CuchulainandPurgatory.Scholars, students, and all who delight in Yeats's varied music and sheer quality will rejoice in this expanded edition. As the introduction observes, "Early and late he has the simple, indispensable gift of enchanting the ear....He was also the poet who, while very much of his own day in Ireland, spoke best to the people of all countries. And though he plunged deep into arcane studies, his themes are most clearly the general ones of life and death, love and hate, man's condition, and history's meanings. He began as a sometimes effete post-Romantic, heir to the pre-Raphaelites, and then, quite naturally, became a leading British Symbolist; but he grew at last into the boldest, most vigorous voice of this century."Selected Poems and Four Playsrepresents the essential achievement of the greatest twentieth-century poet to write in English.

Author Biography

William Butler Yeats is generally considered to be Ireland’s greatest poet, living or dead, and one of the most important literary figures of the twentieth century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923.

Table of Contents

Foreword to the Fourth Edition	xvii
Introduction: The Poetry of Yeats	xix
FROM Crossways (1889)
The Cloak, the Boat, and the Shoes	1	(1)
Ephemera	1	(1)
The Stolen Child	2	(2)
To an Isle in the Water	4	(1)
Down by the Salley Gardens	5	(1)
FROM The Rose (1893)
To the Rose upon the Rood of Time	6	(1)
Fergus and the Druid	7	(1)
Cuchulain's Fight with the Sea	8	(3)
The Rose of the World	11	(1)
A Faery Song	12	(1)
The Lake Isle of Innisfree	12	(1)
The Pity of Love	13	(1)
The Sorrow of Love	13	(1)
When You Are Old	14	(1)
A Dream of Death	14	(1)
Who Goes with Fergus?	15	(1)
The Man Who Dreamed of Faeryland	15	(2)
The Two Trees	17	(1)
To Ireland in the Coming Times	18	(2)
FROM The Wind Among the Reeds (1899)
The Hosting of the Sidhe	20	(1)
The Moods	20	(1)
The Unappeasable Host	21	(1)
Into the Twilight	21	(1)
The Song of Wandering Aengus	22	(1)
The Song of the Old Mother	23	(1)
He Bids His Beloved Be at Peace	23	(1)
He Reproves the Curlew	23	(1)
To His Heart, Bidding It Have No Fear	24	(1)
The Cap and Bells	24	(1)
The Valley of the Black Pig	25	(1)
He Hears the Cry of the Sedge	26	(1)
The Lover Pleads with His Friends for Old Friends	26	(1)
He Wishes His Beloved Were Dead	27	(1)
He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven	27	(1)
FROM In The Seven Woods (1904)
The Folly of Being Comforted	28	(1)
Adam's Curse	28	(2)
Red Hanrahan's Song About Ireland	30	(1)
The Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water	30	(1)
FROM The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910)
A Woman Homer Sung	31	(1)
Words	32	(1)
No Second Troy	32	(1)
Against Unworthy Praise	33	(1)
The Fascination of What's Difficult	33	(1)
A Drinking Song	34	(1)
On Hearing That the Students of Our New University Have Joined the Agitation Against Immoral Literature	34	(1)
To a Poet, Who Would Have Me Praise Certain Bad Poets, Imitators of His and Mine	34	(1)
The Mask	35	(1)
Upon a House Shaken by the Land Agitation	35	(1)
These Are the Clouds	36	(1)
All Things Can Tempt Me	36	(1)
Brown Penny	36	(2)
FROM Responsibilities (1914)
[Pardon, Old Fathers]	38	(1)
September 1913	38	(1)
To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing	39	(1)
Paudeen	40	(1)
To a Shade	40	(1)
When Helen Lived	41	(1)
The Three Hermits	42	(1)
Beggar to Beggar Cried	43	(1)
Running to Paradise	43	(3)
The Witch	44	(1)
The Peacock	45	(1)
To a Child Dancing in the Wind	45	(1)
Two Years Later	46	(1)
A Memory of Youth	46	(1)
Fallen Majesty	47	(1)
The Cold Heaven	47	(1)
That the Night Come	48	(1)
The Magi	48	(1)
The Dolls	49	(1)
A Coat	49	(2)
FROM The Wild Swans at Coole (1919)
The Wild Swans at Coole	51	(1)
In Memory of Major Robert Gregory	52	(3)
An Irish Airman Foresees His Death	55	(1)
The Collar-Bone of a Hare	56	(1)
Solomon to Sheba	56	(1)
To a Young Beauty	57	(1)
The Scholars	58	(1)
Tom O'Roughley	58	(1)
Lines Written in Dejection	59	(1)
The Dawn	59	(1)
On Woman	60	(1)
The Fisherman	61	(1)
The Hawk	62	(1)
Memory	63	(1)
The People	63	(1)
A Thought from Propertius	64	(1)
A Deep-Sworn Vow	65	(1)
Presences	65	(1)
On Being Asked for a War Poem	66	(1)
Upon a Dying Lady	66	(2)
Her Courtesy	66	(1)
Certain Artists Bring Her Dolls and Drawings	66	(1)
She Turns the Dolls' Faces to the Wall	67	(1)
The End of Day	67	(1)
Her Race	67	(1)
Her Courage	68	(1)
Her Friends Bring Her a Christmas Tree	68	(1)
Ego Dominus Tuus	68	(3)
The Phases of the Moon	71	(4)
The Cat and the Moon	75	(1)
The Saint and the Hunchback	76	(1)
Two Songs of a Fool	77	(1)
The Double Vision of Michael Robartes	78	(3)
FROM Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921)
Solomon and the Witch	81	(1)
An Image from a Past Life	82	(1)
Easter, 1916	83	(3)
On a Political Prisoner	86	(1)
The Leaders of the Crowd	86	(1)
Towards Break of Day	87	(1)
Demon and Beast	88	(1)
The Second Coming	89	(1)
A Prayer for My Daughter	90	(2)
A Meditation in Time of War	92	(10)
Calvary (1921)	94	(8)
FROM The Tower (1928)
Sailing to Byzantium	102	(1)
The Tower	103	(6)
Meditations in Time of Civil War	109	(6)
Ancestral Houses	109	(1)
My House	110	(1)
My Table	111	(1)
My Descendants	112	(1)
The Road at My Door	113	(1)
The Stare's Nest by My Window	113	(1)
I See Phantoms of Hatred and of the Heart's Fullness and of the Coming Emptiness	114	(1)
Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen	115	(4)
Two Songs from a Play	119	(1)
Fragments	120	(1)
Leda and the Swan	121	(1)
Among School Children	121	(3)
from a Man Young and Old	124	(1)
First Love	124	(1)
The Death of the Hare	124	(1)
The Secrets of the Old	125	(1)
All Souls' Night	125	(4)
FROM The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933)
In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markievicz	129	(1)
Death	130	(1)
A Dialogue of Self and Soul	130	(3)
Blood and the Moon	133	(2)
Veronica's Napkin	135	(1)
The Nineteenth Century and After	135	(1)
Three Movements	135	(1)
Coole and Ballylee, 1931	136	(1)
For Anne Gregory	137	(1)
Swift's Epitaph	138	(1)
The Choice	138	(1)
Byzantium	138	(2)
The Mother of God	140	(1)
Vacillation	140	(3)
Quarrel in Old Age	143	(1)
Remorse for Intemperate Speech	144	(1)
from Words for Music Perhaps	145	(10)
Crazy Jane and the Bishop	145	(1)
Crazy Jane Reproved	146	(1)
Crazy Jane on the Day of Judgment	146	(1)
Crazy Jane and Jack the Journeyman	147	(1)
Crazy Jane on God	148	(1)
Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop	148	(1)
Crazy Jane Grown Old Looks at the Dancers	149	(1)
Girl's Song	150	(1)
Young Man's Song	150	(1)
Her Anxiety	151	(1)
Three Things	151	(1)
Lullaby	152	(1)
After Long Silence	153	(1)
`I Am of Ireland'	153	(1)
Tom the Lunatic	154	(1)
The Delphic Oracle upon Plotinus	155	(1)
from A Woman Young and Old	155	(3)
A First Confession	155	(1)
Chosen	156	(1)
A Last Confession	156	(2)
The Words Upon the Window-Pane (1934)	158	(14)
FROM A Full Moon in March: ``Parnell's Funeral'' and Other Poems (1935)
Parnell's Funeral	172	(1)
Church and State	173	(1)
from Supernatural Songs:	174	(4)
Ribh at the Tomb of Baile and Aillinn	174	(1)
Ribh in Ecstasy	175	(1)
There	175	(1)
He and She	175	(1)
Whence Had They Come?	176	(1)
The Four Ages of Man	176	(1)
Meru	177	(1)
FROM New Poems (1938)
The Gyres	178	(1)
Lapis Lazuli	179	(1)
The Three Bushes	180	(3)
The Lady's First Song	183	(1)
The Lady's Second Song	183	(1)
The Lady's Third Song	184	(1)
The Lover's Song	184	(1)
The Chambermaid's First Song	185	(1)
The Chambermaid's Second Song	185	(1)
An Acre of Grass	185	(1)
What Then?	186	(1)
Beautiful Lofty Things	187	(1)
Come Gather Round Me, Parnellites	188	(1)
The Wild Old Wicked Man	189	(1)
The Great Day	190	(1)
Parnell	191	(1)
The Spur	191	(1)
A Model for the Laureate	191	(1)
The Old Stone Cross	192	(1)
Those Images	193	(1)
The Municipal Gallery Revisited	193	(3)
FROM On the Boiler (1939)
Why Should Not Old Men Be Mad?	196	(1)
Crazy Jane on the Mountain	196	(1)
A Statesman's Holiday	197	(2)
FROM Last Poems and Two Plays (1939)
Under Ben Bulben	199	(3)
The Black Tower	202	(1)
Cuchulain Comforted	203	(1)
from Three Marching Songs	204	(1)
The Statues	205	(1)
News for the Delphic Oracle	206	(1)
Long-legged Fly	207	(1)
John Kinsella's Lament for Mrs. Mary Moore	208	(1)
The Apparitions	209	(1)
Man and the Echo	210	(2)
The Circus Animals' Desertion	212	(1)
Politics	213	(20)
The Death of Cuchulain (1939)	215	(10)
Purgatory (1939)	225	(8)
Notes	233	(18)
Glossary of Names and Places	251	(8)
Selective Bibliography	259	(4)
Index to Titles	263	(4)
Index of First Lines of Poems	267

Excerpts

Chapter 1

fromCrossways

(1889)

THE CLOAK, THE BOAT, AND THE SHOES

'What do you make so fair and bright?'

'I make the cloak of Sorrow:

O lovely to see in all men's sight

Shall be the cloak of Sorrow,

In all men's sight.'

'What do you build with sails for flight?'

'I build a boat for Sorrow:

O swift on the seas all day and night

Saileth the rover Sorrow,

All day and night.'

'What do you weave with wool so white?'

'I weave the shoes of Sorrow:

Soundless shall be the footfall light

In all men's ears of Sorrow,

Sudden and light.'

(1885)

EPHEMERA

'Your eyes that once were never weary of mine

Are bowed in sorrow under pendulous lids,

Because our love is waning.'

And then she: 'Although our love is waning, let us stand

By the lone border of the lake once more,

Together in that hour of gentleness

When the poor tired child, Passion, falls asleep:

How far away the stars seem, and how far

Is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart!'

Pensive they paced along the faded leaves,

While slowly he whose hand held hers replied:

'Passion has often worn our wandering hearts.'

The woods were round them, and the yellow leaves

Fell like faint meteors in the gloom, and once

A rabbit old and lame limped down the path;

Autumn was over him: and now they stood

On the lone border of the lake once more:

Turning, he saw that she had thrust dead leaves

Gathered in silence, dewy as her eyes,

In bosom and hair.

'Ah, do not mourn,' he said,

'That we are tired, for other loves await us;

Hate on and love through unrepining hours.

Before us lies eternity; our souls

Are love, and a continual farewell.'

(1889)

THE STOLEN CHILD

Where dips the rocky highland

Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,

There lies a leafy island

Where flapping herons wake

The drowsy water-rats;

There we've hid our faery vats,

Full of berries

And of reddest stolen cherries.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than you

can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses

The dim grey sands with light,

Far off by furthest Rosses

We foot it all the night,

Weaving olden dances,

Mingling hands and mingling glances

Till the moon has taken flight;

To and fro we leap

And chase the frothy bubbles,

While the world is full of troubles

And is anxious in its sleep.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than you

can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes

From the hills above Glen-Car,

In pools among the rushes

That scarce could bathe a star,

We seek for slumbering trout

And whispering in their ears

Give them unquiet dreams;

Leaning softly out

From ferns that drop their tears

Over the young streams.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than you

can understand.

Away with us he's going,

The solemn-eyed:

He'll hear no more the lowing

Of the calves on the warm hillside

Or the kettle on the hob

Sing peace into his breast,

Or see the brown mice bob

Round and round the oatmeal-chest.

For he comes, the human child,

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

From a world more full of weeping than he can

understand.

(1886)

TO AN ISLE IN THE WATER

Shy one, shy one,

Shy one of my heart,

She moves in the firelight

Pensively apart.

She carries in the dishes,

And lays them in a row.

To an isle in the water

With her would I go.

She carries in the candles,

And lights the curtained room,

Shy in the doorway

And shy in the gloom;

And shy as a rabbit,

Helpful and shy.

To an isle in the water

With her would I fly.

(1889)

DOWN BY THE SALLEY GARDENS

Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;

She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet.

She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;

But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree.

In a field by the river my love and I did stand,

And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand.

She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;

But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.

(1889)

Foreword and introduction copyright © 1996 by M. L. Rosenthal

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Excerpted from Selected Poems and Four Plays by W. B. Yeats
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.