Selected Poems And Four PlaysSince 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 adds The 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 from Last Poems and Two Plays, which reaches its climax in the brilliant poetic plays The Death of Cuchulain and Purgatory. 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 Plays represents the essential achievement of the greatest twentieth-century poet to write in English. |
Contents
| 1 | |
| 7 | |
| 13 | |
from The Wind Among the Reeds 1899 | 20 |
The Unappeasable Host | 21 |
He Wishes His Beloved Were Dead | 27 |
Against Unworthy Praise | 33 |
Pardon Old Fathers | 38 |
Crazy Jane Grown Old Looks at the Dancers | 149 |
Girls Song | 150 |
Her Anxiety | 151 |
Lullaby | 152 |
After Long Silence | 153 |
Tom the Lunatic | 154 |
The Delphic Oracle upon Pbtinus | 155 |
Chosen | 156 |
The Peacock | 45 |
from The Wild Swans at Coole 1919 | 51 |
To a Young Beauty | 57 |
Memory | 63 |
The Phases of the Moon | 71 |
Two Songs of a Fool | 77 |
Easter 1916 | 83 |
The Second Coming | 89 |
from The Tower 1928 | 102 |
The Tower | 103 |
NINETEEN HUNDRED AND NINETEEN | 115 |
Leda and the Swan | 121 |
from The Winding Stair and Other Poems 1933 | 129 |
Veronicas Napkin | 135 |
Quarrel in Old Age | 143 |
Remorse for Intemperate Speech | 144 |
Crazy Jane Reproved | 146 |
Crazy Jane and Jack the Journeyman | 147 |
Crazy Jane on God | 148 |
The Wards Upon the WindowPane 1934 | 158 |
Parnells Funeral and Other Poems 1935 | 172 |
Church and State | 173 |
in Ribh in Ecstasy | 175 |
Whence Had They Come? | 176 |
The Gyres | 178 |
The Ladys Third Song | 184 |
The Great Day | 190 |
from On the Boiler 1939 | 196 |
The Black Tower | 202 |
Cuchulain Comforted | 203 |
The Apparitions | 209 |
The Death of Cuchulain 1939 | 215 |
Purgatory 1939 | 225 |
Glossary of Names and Places | 251 |
| 259 | |
| 267 | |
Common terms and phrases
Abraham Johnson ancient Aoife Ballylee beauty beggar beloved Ben Bulben bird bitter blind blood body bone breast Byzantium child Christ cloud Conchubar Crazy Jane cried Cuchulain dance dark dead dear death door dream Druid Edition Eithne Emer eyes face faery Fergus gone grey grow gyres hair hand head hear heart Henderson horses imagination Ireland Irish John Corbet John Synge Jonathan Swift king Knocknarea Lady Gregory laugh light lived look lover Lulu Mallet man's Maud Gonne mind Miss Mackenna moon Morrigu night Parnell passion play Plotinus poem poet poet's poetry Red Branch Robartes Roman Soldier round Sailing to Byzantium sang seance seemed sing sleep song soul speak spirit stands stare stars stone sweet Swift Swift's voice symbol There's things Thoor Ballylee thought tower tree Trench W. B. Yeats what's wild wind woman words Yeats Yeats's young