Beautiful early writings by one of the 20th century’s greatest poets on the 150th anniversary of his birth A Penguin Classic The poems, prose, and drama gathered in When You Are Old present a fresh portrait of the Nobel Prize–winning writer as a younger man: the 1890s aesthete who dressed as a dandy, collected Irish folklore, dabbled in magic, and wrote heartrending poems for his beloved, the beautiful, elusive Irish revolutionary Maud Gonne. Included here are such celebrated, lyrical poems as “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” and “He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven,” as well as Yeats’s imaginative retellings of Irish fairytales—including his first major poem, “The Wanderings of Oisin,” based on a Celtic fable—and his critical writings, which offer a fascinating window onto his artistic theories. Through these enchanting works, readers will encounter Yeats as the mystical, lovelorn bard and Irish nationalist popular during his own lifetime. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Rich selection of 134 poems published between 1889 and 1914: "Lake Isle of Innisfree," "When You Are Old," "Down by the Salley Gardens," many more. Note. Alphabetical lists of titles and first lines.

I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams ... Some of the most famous lines in Irish poetry come from the pen of William Butler Yeats, poet, patriot, dramatist and senator. This illustrated collection of forty of his best-loved works, on Love, Politics, Old Age, Myth and Legend includes people, places and events that were important to him.

An exact facsimile of the 1933 first edition of W.B. Yeats’s The Winding Stair and Other Poems, a famously beautiful, elegant volume intended as a companion to The Tower—with an Introduction and notes by the eminent Yeats scholar George Bornstein. Published in 1933 when W.B. Yeats was sixty-eight, The Winding Stair and Other Poems is his longest stand-alone volume of verse. Previously unavailable as a single volume, this beautiful edition will appeal to both general readers and textual scholars. Featuring sixty-four poems from the late 1920s and early 1930s, among them such masterpieces as “Blood and the Moon,” “Byzantium,” the Coole Park poems, “Vacillation,” and two separately titled long sequences including the Crazy Jane poems and ending with the exquisite lyric “From the ‘Antigone,’” this edition also includes an Introduction and notes by celebrated Yeats scholar George Bornstein. These poems amply justify T. S. Eliot’s contention that Yeats was one of the few poets “whose history is the history of their own time, who are a part of the consciousness of an age which cannot be understood without them.”

This work contains the most cherished poems by Irish poet, dramatist, writer, and one of the prominent figures of 20th-century literature, W.B Yeats. He beautifully presented his thoughts about the responsibilities of life and how people must handle them.

In the opinion of many critics, Yeats is the greatest poet of the twentieth century. He is without question the greatest Irish poet. His work has influenced all who have come after him both in Ireland and throughout the English speaking world. In this beautifully designed and produced gift book, we get a selection of about sixty of Yeats's best loved poems complemented by the paintings from Irish artists, usually artists who were contemporaries of the poet.

First published in 1928, The Tower was Yeats’s first collection published after receiving the Nobel Prize in 1923, and it is perhaps the major work that most cemented his reputation as one of the foremost literary figures of the twentieth century. The titular poem, ‘The Tower’, refers to Thoor Ballylee Castle, a Norman tower that Yeats purchased in 1917, and which formed the basis of the original cover design – evoked in the cover of this edition. The collection also includes some of his most inventive and profound work, and develops deep themes regarding life, love and myth. With explanatory notes, this edition seeks to bring the collection to a greater readership and to offer a more profound understanding of the great poet’s work.

Table of contents

Recounts the life of the Irish poet and nationalist, describes his relationships with his contemporaries, and traces his interest in the occult.