William Butler Yeats

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William Butler Yeats

• By
• Tom Higgins

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W B Yeats

• Yeats was born on June 13, 1865 in Sandymount,
  Dublin
• Yeats was educated in Dublin and London but
  returned to Dublin in 1880 to complete his
  education at the Erasmus Smith High School
• In 1885 his first poem was published in the
  Dublin University Review

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W B Yeats

• He had a life long interest in all things magical
  and spiritual and became a member of The Ghost
  Club in 1911
• His first significant poem was "The Isle of
  Statues"

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W B Yeats

• In 1889 Yeats met Maud Gonne, a 23 year old
  English woman and Irish Nationalist and he fell
  in love with her
• He asked her to marry him four times but on each
  occasion she refused
• In 1899 Yeats established the Abbey Theatre
• In 1922 he was appointed to the first Irish
  Senate
• In 1923 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for
  Literature

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Down By The Salley Garden

• Down by the salley gardens my love and I did
  meet
• She passed the salley gardens with little
  snow-white feet.
• She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on
  the tree
• But I, being young and foolish, with her would
  not agree.
• In a field by the river my love and I did stand,
• And on my leaning shoulder she laid her
  snow-white hand.
• She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on
  the weirs
• But I was young and foolish, and now am full of
  tears.

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W B Yeats

• In 1939 he died at the Hotel Ideal Sejour in
  Menton, France and was buried there
• In September 1948, Yeats' body was moved to
  Drumcliff, County Sligo
• His epitaph reads
• Cast a cold Eye?
• On Life, on Death.?
• Horseman, pass by!