Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Get Your Yeats On





A rare, first edition of a poem by William Butler Yeats, "Easter 1916" , is sold at auction for $9,600.


Here's the poem in its entirety.

___________





Image: William Butler Yeats, by Louis le Brocquy, 1994




(This has always been my favorite WBY poem.)



The Lake Isle of Innisfree


I WILL arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.