The First Yeats

Poems by W.B. Yeats 1889-1899

William Butler Yeats, Larrissy

• Publisher: Fyfield Books
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781857549959
• eBook ISBN: 9781847778437
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

W.B. Yeats (1865-1939) began writing poetry as a devotee of Blake, Shelley, the pre-Raphaelites, and of nineteenth-century Irish poets including James Clarence Mangan and Samuel Ferguson. By the end of his life, he had, as T.S. Eliot said, created a poetic language for the twentieth century. The First Yeats deepens our understanding of the making of that poetic imagination, reprinting the original texts of Yeats's three early collections, The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems (1899), The Countess of Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics (1892), and The Wind Among the Reeds (1899). The poems were subsequently heavily revised or discarded. Among them are some of the best-loved poems in English - 'The LakeIsle of Innisfree', 'He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven' - fresh and unfamiliar here in their original contexts, together with Yeats's lengthy notes which were drastically cut in the collected editions. This illuminating edition by Edward Larrissy, editor of W.B. Yeats, The Major Works (Oxford University Press, 2000), includes an introduction that clarifies the literary, historical and intellectual context of the poems, detailed notes, and a bibliography. It offers essential material for reading - and revaluing - one of the great modern poets.

THE WANDERINGS OF OISIN AND OTHER POEMS (1889)

The Wanderings of Oisin and
How a Demon Trapped Him

Part I
The Island of the Living

PATRICK

Oisin, tell me the famous story

Why thou outlivest, blind and hoary,

The bad old days. Thou wert, men sing,

Trapped of an amorous demon thing.

OISIN

’Tis sad remembering, sick with years,

The swift innumerable spears,

The long-haired warriors, the spread feast;

And love, in the hours when youth has ceased:

Yet will I make all plain for thee.

We rode in sorrow, with strong hounds three,

Bran, Sgeolan, and Lomair,

On a morning misty and mild and fair.

The mist-drops hung on the fragrant trees,

And in the blossoms hung the bees.

We rode in sadness above Lough Laen,

For our best were dead on Gavra’s green.

The stag we chased was not more sad,

And yet, of yore, much peace he had

In his own leafy forest house,

Sleek as any granary mouse

Among the fields of waving fern.

We thought on Oscar’s pencilled urn.

Than the hornless deer we chased that morn,

A swifter creature never was born,

And Bran, Sgeolan, and Lomair

Were lolling their tongues, and the silken hair

Of our strong steeds was dark with sweat,

When ambling down the vale we met

A maiden, on a slender steed,

Whose careful pastern pressed the sod

As though he held an earthly mead

Scarce worthy of a hoof gold-shod.

For gold his hooves and silk his rein,

And ’tween his ears, above his mane,

A golden crescent lit the plain,

And pearly white his well-groomed hair.

His mistress was more mild and fair

Than doves that moaned round Eman’s hall

Among the leaves of the laurel wall,

And feared always the bow-string’s twanging.

Her eyes were soft as dewdrops hanging

Upon the grass-blades’ bending tips,

And like a sunset were her lips,

A stormy sunset o’er doomed ships.

Her hair was of a citron tincture,

And gathered in a silver cincture;

Down to her feet white vesture flowed

And with the woven crimson glowed

Of many a figured creature strange,

And birds that on the seven seas range.

For brooch ’twas bound with a bright sea-shell,

And wavered like a summer rill,

As her soft bosom rose and fell.

PATRICK

Oisin, thou art half heathen still!

OISIN

‘Why, as ye ride, droops low each head?

Why do ye sound no horn?’ she said.

‘For hunting heroes should be glad.

The stag ye chase is not more sad,

And yet, of yore, much peace he had,

Sleek as any granary mouse,

In his own leafy forest house,

Among the waving fields of fern.’

‘We think on Oscar’s pencilled urn,

And those on Gavra lying low,

Where round and round the ravens go.

Now, pleasant maiden, tell to me

Thy name, thy kin, and thy country,’

Cried Fin; and cried she, ‘Men of fame,

My home is far from where the tide

Washes the shores where ye abide,

Ye worn deed-doers, and my name

Is Niam, daughter of the King

Of the Young.’

‘Young maiden, what may bring

Thy wandering steps across the sea?

Is thy companion gone from thee?’

Clear fluted then that goblin rare –

‘Not so, great king; for I have ne’er

Been spoken of with any man.

For love of Oisin my feet ran

Across t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• A Note on the Text
• Bibliography
• THE WANDERINGS OF OISIN AND OTHER POEMS (1889)
• LEGENDS AND LYRICS (1892)
• THE WIND AMONG THE REEDS (1899)
• Notes on the Poems
• Index of Titles
• Index of First Lines
• About the Author
• Copyright