Responsibilities and Other Poems

William Butler Yeats

• Publisher: Ragged Hand - Read & Co.
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781473349285
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Poetry
• Index: Literature

"Responsibilities and Other Poems" is a 1916 collection of poetry by Yeats. William Butler Yeats (13 June 1865 - 28 January 1939) was an Irish poet and one of the most prolific literary figures of the 20th-century. At the forefront of both the British and Irish literary movements, he co-founded the Abbey Theatre and was, along with Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn and others, a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival. In his later life, Yeats also served as a Senator in Ireland. This fantastic volume is highly recommended for all lovers of poetry, and it is not to be missed by readers with an interest in the Irish Literary Revival. Contents include: "Responsibilities, 1912-1914", "Introductory Rhymes", "The Grey Rock", "The Two Kings", "To A Wealthy Man", "September 1913", "To a Friend whose Work has come to Nothing", "Paudeen", "To a Shade", "When Helen Lives", "The Attack on 'The Playboy of the West World", "The Three Beggars", "The Three Hermits", "Beggar to Beggar Cried", etc. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author.

'In dreams begins responsibility.'
Old Play.
'How am I fallen from myself, for a long time now
I have not seen the Prince of Chang in my dreams.'
Khoung-fou-tseu.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Pardon, old fathers, if you still remain

Somewhere in ear-shot for the story's end,

Old Dublin merchant 'free of ten and four'

Or trading out of Galway into Spain;

And country scholar, Robert Emmet's friend,

A hundred-year-old memory to the poor;

Traders or soldiers who have left me blood

That has not passed through any huxter's loin,

Pardon, and you that did not weigh the cost,

Old Butlers when you took to horse and stood

Beside the brackish waters of the Boyne

Till your bad master blenched and all was lost;

You merchant skipper that leaped overboard

After a ragged hat in Biscay Bay,

You most of all, silent and fierce old man

Because you were the spectacle that stirred

My fancy, and set my boyish lips to say

'Only the wasteful virtues earn the sun';

Pardon that for a barren passion's sake,

Although I have come close on forty-nine

I have no child, I have nothing but a book,

Nothing but that to prove your blood and mine.

January 1914.

THE GREY ROCK

Poets with whom I learned my ...

Table of contents

• W. B. Yeats
• RESPONSIBILITIES
• HIS DREAM
• THE HOUR-GLASS