This collection of literature attempts to compile many of the classic works that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price, in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them.

WHAT IS 'POPULAR POETRY'? 3. SPEAKING TO THE PSALTERY. 7. MAGIC. 11. THE HAPPIEST OF THE POETS. 22. THE PHILOSOPHY OF SHELLEY'S POETRY. 27. AT STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 41. WILLIAM BLAKE AND THE IMAGINATION. 48. WILLIAM BLAKE AND HIS ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE DIVINE COMEDY. 61. SYMBOLISM IN PAINTING. 63. THE SYMBOLISM OF POETRY. 66. THE THEATRE. 71. THE CELTIC ELEMENT IN LITERATURE. 75. THE AUTUMN OF THE BODY. 81. THE MOODS. 84. THE BODY OF THE FATHER CHRISTIAN ROSENCRUX. 84. THE RETURN OF ULYSSES. 85. IRELAND AND THE ARTS. 88. THE GALWAY PLAINS. 91. EMOTION OF MULTITUDE. 93.

I swayed upon the gaudy stern The butt end of a steering oar, And everywhere that I could turn Men ran upon the shore. And though I would have hushed the crowd There was no mother's son but said, "What is the figure in a shroud Upon a gaudy bed?"

"A Book of Irish Verse" from William Butler Yeats. Irish poet (1865-1939).

The kitchen of_MAURTEEN BRAIN'S house. An open grate with a turf fire is at the left side of the room, with a table in front of it. There is a door leading to the open air at the back, and another door a little to its left, leading into an inner room. There is a window, a settle, and a large dresser on the right side of the room, and a great bowl of primroses on the sill of the window. MAURTEEN BRUIN, FATHER HART; andBRIDGET BRUIN are sitting at the table.SHAWN BRUIN is setting the table for supper.MAIRE BRUIN sits on the settle reading a yellow manuscript.

I am often doubted when I say that the Irish peasantry still believe in fairies. People think I am merely trying to bring back a little of the old dead beautiful world of romance into this century of great engines and spinning-jinnies. Surely the hum of wheels and clatter of printing presses, to let alone the lecturers with their black coats and tumblers of water, have driven away the goblin kingdom and made silent the feet of the little dancers.

I have heard the pigeons of the Seven Woods Make their faint thunder, and the garden bees Hum in the lime tree flowers; and put away The unavailing outcries and the old bitterness That empty the heart. I have forgot awhile

At the end of the eighties my father and mother, my brother and sisters and myself, all newly arrived from Dublin, were settled in Bedford Park in a red-brick house with several wood mantlepieces copied from marble mantlepieces by the brothers Adam, a balcony, and a little garden shadowed by a great horse-chestnut tree. Years before we had lived there, when the crooked, ostentatiously picturesque streets, with great trees casting great shadows, had been anew enthusiasm: the Pre-Raphaelite movement at last affecting life.

William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments. Yeats was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival. In 1923, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature as the first Irishman so honoured for what the Nobel Committee described as "inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation."