Wednesday's Poetry Watch #3

This is a new feature I’ll be posting once a week, and in each post I’ll feature a different poet or poem that I really love. I’ll share a few facts about the poet and recommend an additional poem(s) that you may enjoy as well. Poetry has always been a HUGE passion of mine whether it’s writing it, reading it, or discussing it. And I’m really looking excited to share some of the mad love I have for it with all of you lovelies! 

-----------------------------------------

This week I'm featuring a poet that I may be slightly obsessed with... but if you've read any of his work how can you possibly blame me? The poet I'm referring to is William Butler Yeats, not only are his poems gorgeous to read but he's from Ireland.. and it's well known that I have an obsession with all things Irish! 

A few facts for you: "William Butler Yeats (pronounced /ˈjeɪts/) was an Irish poet and dramatist, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years Yeats served as an Irish Senator for two terms. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival, and along with Lady Gregory and Edward Martyn founded the Abbey Theatre, serving as its chief during its early years. In 1923 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for what the Nobel Committee described as "inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation." He was the first Irishman so honored. Yeats is generally considered one of the few writers who completed their greatest works after being awarded the Nobel Prize; such works include The Tower (1928) and The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1929).
Yeats was born and educated in Dublin but spent his childhood in County Sligo. He studied poetry in his youth, and from an early age was fascinated by both Irish legends and the occult. Those topics feature in the first phase of his work, which lasted roughly until the turn of the century. His earliest volume of verse was published in 1889, and those slow paced and lyrical poems display debts to Edmund Spenser and Percy Bysshe Shelley, as well as to the Pre-Raphaelite poets. From 1900, Yeats' poetry grew more physical and realistic. He largely renounced the transcendental beliefs of his youth, though he remained preoccupied with physical and spiritual masks, as well as with cyclical theories of life." ~Wikipedia

 -----------------------------------------

One of my absolute favorite poems by Yeats would have to be, "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven". 

"He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven"

"Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."

 -----------------------------------------

It's not a very long poem, but some of the best poems are on the short side. It doesn't take an extreme amount of words to get the point and the feeling across, it just takes the right ones. And in keep with my theme of the whole "grave site visiting" thing, I would most definitely love to see his, as well as the part of Ireland where he lived/grew up! :D

A few of my other favorites are, A Faery Song, Lullaby, and The Cap and Bells.

Do I have any fellow Yeats fanatics out there?! Or must I convert you? *mwahahaha....* :D

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”