Irish Modern Author

William Butler Yeats was a very popular and famous Irish author from the early 1900's. He was born in Sandymount, County Dublin. He helped start the Irish Literary Rival. Also, he helped to found Abbey Theatre with Lady Gregory and Edward Martyn. In 1923, he received the Nobel prize for literature for "inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation." He is one of the very few authors who's best work comes after receiving the award. Some of his most famous poem include "The Black Tower" and "The Winding Stair." At first, Yeats' subjects were mainly the Irish legends and the occult as well as transcendentalism. Later in his life, however, he turned to write more on physically tangible things and focused more on realism. He died on January 28, 1939.

The Black Tower

SAY that the men of the old black tower,
Though they but feed as the goatherd feeds,
Their money spent, their wine gone sour,
Lack nothing that a soldier needs,
That all are oath-bound men:Those banners come not in.

There in the tomb stand the dead upright,
But winds come up from the shore:
They shake when the winds roar,
Old bones upon the mountain shake.

Those banners come to bribe or threaten,
Or whisper that a man's a fool
Who, when his own right king's forgotten,
Cares what king sets up his rule.
If he died long ago
Why do you dread us so?

There in the tomb drops the faint moonlight,
But wind comes up from the shore:
They shake when the winds roar,
Old bones upon the mountain shake.

The tower's old cook that must climb and clamber
Catching small birds in the dew of the morn
When we hale men lie stretched in slumber
Swears that he hears the king's great horn.
But he's a lying hound:
Stand we on guard oath-bound!

There in the tomb the dark grows blacker,
But wind comes up from the shore:
They shake when the winds roar,
Old bones upon the mountain shake.