e Irish drama; they have
established a closer contact between the peasant and poet. No one,
however, has had so great a part in the shaping of modern drama in
Ireland as Yeats. His _Deirdre_ (1907), a beautiful retelling of the
great Gaelic legend, is far more dramatic than the earlier plays; it
is particularly interesting to read with Synge's more idiomatic play
on the same theme, _Deirdre of the Sorrows_.

The poems of Yeats which are quoted here reveal him in his most lyric
and musical vein.

THE LAKE ISLE OF INNISFREE

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

THE SONG OF THE OLD MOTHER

I rise in the dawn, and I kneel and blow
Till the seed of the fire flicker and glow.
And then I must scrub, and bake, and sweep,
Till stars are beginning to blink and peep;
But the young lie long and dream in their bed
Of the matching of ribbons, the blue and the red,
And their day goes over in idleness,
And they sigh if the wind but lift up a tress.
While I must work, because I am old
And the seed of the fire gets feeble and cold.

THE CAP AND BELLS

A Queen was beloved by a jester,
And once when the owls grew still
He made his soul go upward
And stand on her window sill.

In a long and straight blue garment,
It talked before morn was white,
And it had grown wise by thinking
Of a footfall hushed and light.

But the young queen would not listen;
She rose in her pale nightgown,
She drew in the brightening casement
And pushed the brass bolt down.

He bade his heart go to her,
When the bats cried out no more,
In a red and quivering garment
It sang to her through the door.

The tongue of it sweet with dreaming
Of a flutter of flower-l