Whe re My Book s Go All the words that I gather, And all the words that I write, Must spread out their wings untiring, And never rest in their flight, Till they come where your sad, sad heart is, And sing to you in the night, Beyond where the waters are moving, Storm darkened or starry bright.
W.B. Yeats
William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) was born in Dublin, Ireland, on 13 June 1865. Considered to be one of the greatest poets of modern times, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923. Yeats’s father, the portrait painter John Butler Yeats, read many poems to the young ‘Willie’ Yeats, and from his mother, Susan, he heard many tales from her home county of Sligo. Yeats and his sisters, Susan (Lily), Elizabeth (Lolly) and Jane Grace, and his brothers, Jack and Robert, spent their childhoods in Sligo, Dublin and London. Yeats went to the Godolphin School in Hammersmith, London, the Erasmus Smith High School, Dublin, and the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art. Although he was a talented artist, Yeats decided that he would rather be a poet. Yeats was a key figure in the Irish Literary Revival of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His early poems and stories were inspired by Irish mythology and folklore. He also wrote about love and political matters in Ireland. He was interested in magic, mysticism and spiritualism. As a young man, Yeats fell in love with the political activist and nationalist Maud Gonne. He went on to marry George (Georgie) Hyde-Lees, and together they were members of the magical order of The Golden Dawn in London. They had two children, Anne and Michael. Yeats found a great friend in Lady Augusta Gregory, who lived in Coole Park near Gort in County Galway, and the poet often visited her there and wrote many of his poems and plays in her house and garden. With Lady Gregory and others, Yeats founded an Irish national theatre (to be known as the Abbey Theatre) and wrote plays to be performed there. Yeats was also an important cultural figure and was appointed a senator of the Irish Free State in 1922. Yeats died in France on 28 January 1939 and is buried in Drumcliffe churchyard in County Sligo. Dr Noreen Doody was born and lives in Dublin. She studied English and French at University College Dublin and received a PhD in English Literature from Trinity College Dublin. She has been a teacher for many years and delights in introducing children and adults to Ireland’s rich heritage of poetry, prose and drama. She is a senior lecturer in English Literature and the former head of the Department of English at St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra, Dublin. She currently teaches on the MA programme in Children’s Literature in the School of English, Dublin City University. She is an expert on the work of W.B. Yeats and Oscar Wilde. Scottish-born Shona Shirley Macdonald is an artist based in County Waterford. Her published illustration includes Rita Kelly’s poetry retrospective Turas go Bun na Spéire and two Scottish Gaelic graphic novels, Cuir Stad air an Stoirm Shneachda and An Smutag Ghaisgeil. Her projects range from publications of poetry and fiction to concept artwork for theatre and computer games. She also illustrates greeting cards and T-shirts for her design company Mireog. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally.
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First published 2016 by The O’Brien Press Ltd, 12 Terenure Road East, Rathgar, Dublin 6, D06 HD27, Ireland. Tel: +353 1 4923333; Fax: +353 1 4922777 E-mail: books@obrien.ie. Website: www.obrien.ie The O’Brien Press is a member of Publishing Ireland. ISBN: 978-1-84717-738-4 Copyright for compilation, introduction, and ‘Yeats and his Family’ © Noreen Doody Copyright for illustrations © Shona Shirley Macdonald Copyright for typesetting, layout, editing, design © The O’Brien Press Ltd All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or in any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 16 17 18 19 20 Printed in Drukarnia Skleniarz, Poland. The paper used in this book is produced using pulp from managed forests.
Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge the generosity of the late Anne Yeats, who shared with me stories of her childhood to retell in this book. I would like to thank Michael O’Brien for his support and his adherence to aesthetic ideals; Marina Carr, who introduced my work to Michael; Susan Houlden for her insightful editing; Emma Byrne for her outstanding design; Ide Ní Laoghaire for her helpful advice. I am indebted to Shona Shirley Macdonald for her exquisite, magical illustrations that illuminate the beauty of Yeats’s language. I am especially thankful to Professor Declan Kiberd for his generous support and encouragement. I am also grateful to him, Celia Keenan and Professor Terence Brown for their reading of the early manuscript. I very much appreciate the support of my colleagues at the School of English and the Centre for Children’s Literature and Cultures, Dublin City University; Mary Broderick, National Library of Ireland; Leah Benson, National Gallery of Ireland. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my wonderful daughters, Léan, Chantal, Aude, Justine and Chloë, for their unfailing support and love; their expertise and advice were invaluable to me during the writing of this book. Noreen Doody
Published in
Dedica tio n : Fo r L a ra , Da n n y, M ilo a n d L a y l a
Contents Introduction To a Squirrel at Kyle-na-no The Fiddler of Dooney The Hosting of the Sidhe The Stolen Child The Lake Isle of Innisfree
7 9 10 12 14 21
The Man and His Boots The Wild Swans at Coole The Cat and the Moon To a Child Dancing in the Wind Running to Paradise The WICKED HAWTHORN TREE He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven The Song of Wandering Aengus The Wisdom of the King
22 24 28 32 34 38 40 42 47
W.B. Yeats and His Family 55 When Yeats was a Little Boy 56 A Letter written by w.b. Yeats, aged eleven 60 yeats and his daughter 61 BIBLIOGRAPHY 64
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Introduction ‘ a wh i t e b la ck bird amo n g t h e o t h e r s , a ge ni u s a mo n g t h e c o mmo n p l ac e ’ Poet Katharine Tynan on W.B. Yeats
W.B. Yeats’s poetry and stories explore the natural and the imaginative world; they are filled with the excitement and wonder of life. The Moon Spun Round is intended as a carefully selected glimpse into the treasure trove of this remarkable poet and storyteller. With the help of the artist, Shona Shirley Macdonald, Yeats’s words are presented in a fresh and, it is hoped, enticing way, to show that Ireland’s most famous poet can be enjoyed by readers of all ages. Yeats’s poems and stories are filled with the names of places and natural landmarks such as mountains, lakes and waterfalls. He believed that people love the land and the sea because of the ‘beautiful legends and wild sad stories’ that were always told in these places. He wished to continue this tradition and fill these places with his own imaginative stories. The names of places and landmarks in the countryside of Sligo and Galway often occur in this book. Fifty-nine swans are seen upon the brimming water of Coole Lake; the squirrel lives in the wood of Kyle-na-no, one of the Seven Woods at Coole, County Galway, where Yeats’s friend Lady Gregory lived. As a boy Yeats stayed for some years with his grandparents in County Sligo. He thought of Sligo as a magical place, and he often wrote about its landscape and the faery hills in which the people of faery, or the sidhe (pronounced ‘shee’), have their underground dwellings. Many places in Sligo find their way into the poems and stories in this book, including Glen-Car Waterfall, the ruins of Castle Dargan, Windy Gap on Lough Talt, Dooney Rock and the island of Innisfree. In his poetry and stories, Yeats explores this world and what might lie beyond. He was absorbed by the mystical and had a deep knowledge of magical lore. Yeats explains that the sidhe, or faeries, are the Tuatha Dé Danann, the gods of ancient Ireland, and that they ‘still ride the country as of old’. In ‘The Stolen Child’ they try to entice an earthly child to come away to ‘the waters and the wild’. In ‘The Song of Wandering Aengus’, Aengus is the god of love and poetry and the ‘glimmering girl’ is one of the Tuatha Dé Danann who have the power to change their shape. Yeats tells tales of the familiar and the amusing and of eerie, mythical happenings. There is a story from Donegal in this collection about a man who is booted out of his haunted house by his own boots. The child-king in the story ‘The Wisdom of the King’ is visited by grey crones – dark Fomorian goddesses of ancient Irish myth – who fulfil his nurse’s wish that the baby be wise by
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mixing their grey spiritual blood with his earthly blood. The boy grows up to be very different from his people. The nurse would have done well to have heeded the warning in many a fairy tale: ‘Be careful what you wish for’! Yeats believed in the power of storytelling and was enthralled by the folktales and legends of Ireland. He collected many folktales from the people of Galway and Sligo and made use of these in his own stories. From his childhood Yeats had a keen interest in nature. His pets included frogs, lizards, dogs and a white rat with no tail, which he kept in his pocket. He shows his observation of animal behaviour in many of his poems, from the wild swans at Coole to drowsy water-rats, flapping herons, and the black cat, Minnaloushe, lifting his delicate feet as he runs through the grass. Yeats believed that ‘a poem without its rhythm is not a poem’; his poems have strong and varied rhythms that are ideal for reading aloud. Yeats’s daughter, Anne, remembered how her father always tapped out the beat with his fingers as he was composing his poems. The rhythms in the poems can be fluid and lilting: And walk among long dappled grass, And pluck till time and times are done The silver apples of the moon, The golden apples of the sun. Or they can be swift and insistent, like the beat of running feet: The wind is old and still at play While I must hurry upon my way, For I am running to Paradise; Yeats conjures up amazing images – a cat who carries the moon in his eyes; dancers who dance like a wave of the sea; cloths that are made from the night and light and the half-light; a king with hair of the grey hawk’s feathers; and many more. Let Yeats lead you away now to meet the squirrel at Kyle-na-no, the Fiddler of Dooney, and the sidhe of Knocknarea. Come race through the rocky highland, wander down woodland paths, dance on the shore, stand beneath the wicked hawthorn tree and stay awhile in the bee-loud glade, by the lake’s edge or in some magical moonlit place.
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To a Squirrel at Kyle-na-no Come play with me; Why should you run Through the shaking tree As though I’d a gun To strike you dead? When all I would do Is to scratch your head And let you go.
The Fiddler of Dooney When I play on my fiddle in Dooney, Folk dance like a wave of the sea; My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet, My brother in Mocharabuiee. I passed my brother and cousin: They read in their books of prayer; I read in my book of songs I bought at the Sligo fair. When we come at the end of time To Peter sitting in state, He will smile on the three old spirits, But call me first through the gate;
For the good are always the merry, Save by an evil chance, And the merry love the fiddle, And the merry love to dance: And when the folk there spy me, They will all come up to me, With ‘Here is the fiddler of Dooney!’ And dance like a wave of the sea.
The Hosting of the Sidhe The host is riding from Knocknarea And over the grave of Clooth-na-Bare; Caoilte tossing his burning hair, And Niamh calling Away, come away: Empty your heart of its mortal dream. The winds awaken, the leaves whirl round, Our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound, Our breasts are heaving, our eyes are agleam, Our arms are waving, our lips are apart;
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And if any gaze on our rushing band, We come between him and the deed of his hand, We come between him and the hope of his heart. The host is rushing ’twixt night and day, And where is there hope or deed as fair? Caoilte tossing his burning hair, And Niamh calling Away, come away.
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