Last summer you, who were at the age I was when first I heard of Mallarmé and of Verlaine, spoke much of the French poets young men and women read to-day. Claudel I already somewhat knew, but you read to me for the first time from Jammes a dialogue between a poet and a bird, that made us cry, and a whole volume of Peguy's _Mystère de la Charité de Jeanne d'Arc_. Nothing remained the same but the preoccupation with religion, for these poets submitted everything to the Pope, and all, even Claudel, a proud oratorical man, affirmed that they saw the world with the eyes of vine-dressers and charcoal-burners. It was no longer the soul, self-moving and self-teaching--the magical soul--but Mother France and Mother Church. Have not my thoughts run through a like round, though I have not found my tradition in the Catholic Church, which was not the church of my childhood, but where the tradition is, as I believe, more universal and more ancient? W. B. Y. _May_ 11, 1917. Printed in the United States of America. The following pages contain advertisements of books by the same author or on kindred subjects. Responsibilities BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS _Cloth, $1.25_ "William Butler Yeats is by far the biggest poetic personality living among us at present. He is great both as a lyric and dramatist poet." --_John Masefield._ "This poetry has the rhythm that is incantation and sorcery, that is not of the senses nor of the spirit, but of a mingling which is exaltation." --_Chicago Evening Post._ Under the title of "Responsibilities" William Butler Yeats brings together some of his recent poems. Notable still for his freshness of thought, his keen originality, and his purely poetic conception of thoughts and facts, Mr. Yeats sometimes makes us wonder how he has so long been able to hold his style above the ever rising level of modern poetry. No man stands so apart in his own perfection as does this Irish poet and playwright, in his art of discovering truths remote and beautiful. Serious, vital thoughts he veils, as the genuine poet, in a cloak of fine rhythmical expression. It is, after all, as a poet that the majority of people like to think of Mr. Yeats, and this splendid collection, the first in a number of years, is assured of a warm welcome. BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS The Cutting of an Agate _12mo, $1.50_ "Mr. Yeats is probably the most important as well as the most widely known of the men concerned directly in the so-called Celtic renaissance. More than this, he stands among the few men to be reckoned with in modern poetry."--_New York Herald._ The Green Helmet and Other Poems _Decorated cloth, 12mo, $1.25_