W. B. YEATS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 66, Issue 5601, 5 April 1943, Page 6

W. B. YEATS

VERSATILE POET PLAYWRIGHT AND POLITICAN (By R.K.) W. B. Yeats has an established reputation among the great writers of modern English, and while he is particularly known as a poet, he has exercised a considerable influence upon literature as a whole.

It is impossible to read him wi chout being aware that a peculiarly sensitive soul is touching the chords of life with delicate, understanding fingers. There is the charm, the gentle power of one whose mind is deeply aware of the finer intentions of human life in every line of his carefully written poetry. In him the renaissance* of Irish literature reaches its zenith. Intimately, if not tragically, involved in Ireland’s struggle for self-determina-tion, he is in real accord with the older stranger mystical tendencies of early Irish history. Over the long course of years during which he has been writing W. B. Yeats has taken a foremost place among philosophical poets, for his work possesses not only charm, but profound insight into the problems of human life.

There is a curious blending of an aesthetic sensuousness with a reverent spirituality which affects both heart and mind. He is at the same time a lover of beauty and a teacher of truth, an exponent of the inner reaches of the human spirit, and a seer into the perplexities of universal life. A dreamer, he recognises that dreams are the most real of all man’s efforts, and often the most lasting. While he is tensely aware of the impact of ideals upon life, he is also conscious that they can be so easily frustrated, crushed and forever broken. The popular song, the words of which come from W. B. Yeats, expresses this fact: Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths Enwrought with gold and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the halflight. I would spread the cloths under your feet; But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. This poem has in it the same passion of the Indian lyric of Sarojini Naidu in which she pictures the suppliant acknowledging that having no gift fit to offer to the great King, she lays her life before his feet. It is the final abnegation of self, the willingness to offer self to the one who is loved and worshipped. It is human love clothed with the majesty and mystery of religion. W. B. Yeats has lived through the greatest era in world history. Born before the Franco-Prussian war, he witnessed the culmination of English imperialism, the establishment of the Irish Free State, and the clash of nations in the 20th century. It is altogether fitting that he should have received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1823. It singled him out as a man whose contribution to human life was many sided, for he was at the time a Senator in the Irish Free State. His life has been a quest for the unseen— There are sweet fields that lie Under the mountains, Where life runs pleasently Like little fountains. ...... There may the grey heart sing .... Yet he has not refused i to face the peril and the strain of' difficult days into which he has poured j

the fire of his idealism and the wealth of his imaginative enthusiasm.

Irish Legends William Butler Yeats w*as born in 1865, at Sandymount, near Dublin, and his family removed to London when he was an infant; but he maintained his contact with the land of his birth. The wildest part of Western Ireland, County Sligo, was the district to which he continually returned for his holidays. Its rugged life entered into nis soul. Its folklore and legends, which he learned from the peasants, among whom they survived, became the background against which this poetic genius developed and flourished. His father, the distinguisher Irish -artist J. B. Yeats, together with his brother, also an artist, and his sister the founder of the Cuala Press formed the mental lenvironment in which he was nurtured. From the first there appeared a note of longing in his poetry— I would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea? I am haunted by numberless islands, and many a Danaan shore, Where Time would surely forget us. . which embodies not only the yearning of Irish nationalism, but the eternal aspiration of the human soul. After attending the Godolphin school, in Hammersmith, W. B. Yeats went to the Erasmus Smith school in Dublin. He then studied art for three years, but was unsatisfied, and at the age of 21 turned to literature. In 1886 his first book “Ajosada,” appeared. From the first he was identified with the renaissance of Irish poetry, which found its chief inspiration in the old national legends. He became the friend of such men as William Morris, W. E. Henley, Arthur Symons and Lionel Johnson. After his first dramatic poem, he published in 1889, ‘'The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems.” Six years later appeared “Poems,” and in 1906-1907 the “Poetcal Work of William B. Yeats.” For the Theatre Meanwhile he had been devoting himself to the establishment of the Irish Literary Theatre, -which later became the Abby Theatre, of which he became a director in 1904. His I work was immediately acclaimed on account of its clarity and wistfulness. Fantasy, color, poignant music mingle in his yvork. A mind of singular comprehensiveness is shown by the fact ' 1 hat he took a foremost part in the , struggle for Irish home rule, and i wrotp. fith fascinating insight upon j such subjects as “Ideas of Good and j Z'vil” (1903), “Discoveries” (1907, j and “The Bounty, of Sweden” (1925). 1 Many plays flowed from his pen, ■ such as The Countess Kathleen I (1892), The Pot of Broth (1904) The Golden Helmet (1908). Deeply interested in the work of other poets and their personalities, he discovered J. M. Synge in Paris, and persuaded him to write plays. Poetial Trend The influence of W. B. Yeats upon English literature is important, warking a definite stage in the movement culminating in the present He claims that the romantic period in English literature is over, and that the present trend is in the direction of philosophical poetry. It could not be expected that he would foresee so profound a transformation as is at present taking place, which may well usher in another period of Elizabethan pageantry. Here is his last note of yearning— I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sound by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray, I hear it in the deep heart’s core. Not for the superficial or careless, but for those who feel the beauty and allure of ths world’s lost loveliness and possess a deep desire to make their dreams come'true. W. B. Yeats will possess the fascination of sweetnes and fire.