IN MEMORY OF W. B. YEATS (III)
(D. JAN. 1939)
By W. H. Auden (february 1939)
Earth, receive na honoured guest:
William Yeats is laid to rest.
Let the Irish vessel lie.
Emptied of its poetry
In the nightmore of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in tis hate;
Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas’of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.
Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice;
With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;
In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start.
In the prision of this days
Teach the free man how to praise.
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Synopsis
Irish poet William Butler Yeats first published his first works in the mid-1880s while a student at Dublin’s Metropolitan School of Art. He eventually dropped out, but he continued to write. Yeats’ early accomplishments included The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems (1889) and such plays as The Countess Kathleen (1892) and Deirdre (1907). In 1923, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Yeats wrote several more influential works after receiving this honor, including The Tower (1928) and Words for Music Perhaps and Other Poems (1932). Yeats died in 1939. He is remembered as one of the most significant modern poets of all time.
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Synopsis
W.H. Auden, also known as Wystan Hugh Auden, was a poet, author and playwright born in York, England, on February 21, 1907. Auden was a leading literary influencer in the 20th century. Known for his chameleon-like ability to write poems in almost every verse form, Auden’s travels in countries torn by political strife influenced his early works. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1948.