Today is William Butler Yeats Day. Not everywhere. Just on this blog. I blame The Waterboys, but more of that later. First to WB himself. He was an Irishman, born in 1865 and living until 1939. He is, perhaps, the greatest literary figure in Ireland's history, leading (after a fashion) a revival in Irish culture which went along with the revival of Irish nationalism and the independence which he lived to see. He even served as a senator in the first independent Irish parliament. When I was a young man dabbling in literary studies we were taught that there were two pillars of twentieth century English poetry, Yeats and TS Eliot. I have to confess that at the time I preferred the austere Eliot. I loved to immerse myself in the beautiful cadence of his verse. What seas what shores what grey rocks and what islands What water lapping the bow And scent of pine and the woodthrush singing through the fog What images return O my daughter. Even when I had no idea what h
'Contemplating the teeming life of the shore, we have an uneasy sense of the communication of some universal truth that lies just beyond our grasp.' - Rachel Carson