W.B.

Yeats

W.B. Yeats

This year marks the 150th year since W.B. Yeats birth.
William Butler Yeats was born in 1865 in Sandymount, Dublin.
His time spent as a young boy in Sligo influenced his early poems.
He was in love with Maud Gonne, but she would not marry him.
In 1904-1910 W.B Yeats managed the Abbey Theatre, which he co-founded with
Lady Gregory.

He married Georgie Hyde-Lees and they worked together on his literary works.
He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923.
In 1939 W.B. Yeats died and was buried in France until he was brought home in
1948 and buried in Drumcliffe Churchyard in Sligo.

The Wild Swans at Coole

This poem is set in Coole Park, Co Galway, a place Yeats
visited frequently throughout his life.

It is a dry October day in autumn and the trees in Coole Pare

are covered with multi-coloured leaves. The poet is
wandering through the park. The lake reminds him of the
first time he saw the swans nineteen years previous. The
poet begins to reminisce on how everything is now different.
He is no longer as youthful and as carefree as he was.

The Wild Swans at Coole

A reflection on growing old
A symbolic poem - Swans represent youth, love and the poets poetic
abilities.

Poet uses beautiful imagery in the poem. e.g. Stanza One

Element of Sadness - The poet knows the day will come when his gifts
will have flown away like the swans and he will succumb to old age
and die.

Contrast between the poet and the swans - The swans seem to defy
growing old, unlike the poet.

An Irish Airman Forsees His

Death
This poem is about Major Robert Gregory son of W.B Yeats
friend Lady Gregory from Coole Park, Co Galway.

Yeats is lamenting the death of his dear friends son and

portrays him as a brave and confident soldier who forsees
his own death.

Yeats admires Robert Gregory for his ability to calmly detach

himself and succumb to a heroic impulse which called him to
live for the moment and disregard his past and future.