Mr. Yeats has ever been a dreamer-poet; he said once that, if our dreams could all come true, there might not be any poetry to be written; so we are told by his biographer, Forrest Reid. Many of his dreams are embodied in his lyrics, his plays, his short stories and sketches, and his essays, _Ideas of Good and Evil_. _The Celtic Twilight_ and _The Secret Rose_ contain some of his most fanciful, poetic tales; “The Binding of the Hair” is an example of his highest art in this form. Dreams of love and service are found in the volumes of poems, like _The Wind Among the Reeds_, _In the Seven Woods_, _The Wild Swans at Coole_, and _Responsibilities_. These separate collections are now appearing in the uniform edition of his _Works_ (Macmillan). Like Keats and William Blake, Mr. Yeats has been criticized for the lack of human contacts; he has been accused of more interest in and sympathy with waves and winds, with trees and fairy-lore than with deep human emotions. His absorption emotionally seems to be in lyrical and spiritual rhapsodies. In reading a love lyric, like “A Poet to His Beloved,” one feels that the dreams and the words are more ardent than the passion of love. One of the best interpretive essays ever written upon Shelley is found in _Ideas of Good and Evil_; these two poets were alike in many moods, in their delicate, elusive fancies. In the exquisite diction of some of his lines, and the fluctuating moods that affect his themes and modes of expression, Mr. Yeats seems to me comparable to Thomas Bailey Aldrich and such delicate lyrics, as “Nocturne” and “A Mood.” In these later years Mr. Yeats has carried his ideals into more active life; he has undertaken _Responsibilities_ other than poetic expression. He has been deeply concerned about the future of Ireland and has been a member of the Senate of the Irish Free State. He has become a leader in political and educational, as well as literary, movements. Through the _Daily Express of Dublin_, he entered the lists of combatants against Bernard Shaw and his adherents who maintained that “poetry is a criticism of life.” In expanded thought upon this idea, in _Literary Ideals in Ireland_, Mr. Yeats has prophesied that, as the years pass, the function of poetry as _criticism_ will be discarded; for it, will be substituted poetry as _revelation_ of life, sometimes in tangible forms, more often in idealistic spirit. FOOTNOTES: [158] Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1923. [159] John Sherman, pp. 88-90, and _W. B. Yeats: a Critical Study_ by Forrest Reid, New York, Dodd, Mead & Co., 1915. [160] _Op. cit._, p. 151. [161] _Land of Heart’s Desire_ by W. B. Yeats, copyright by W. B. Yeats, New York, 1911; also in _Plays and Controversies_, New York, 1925. By permission of the Macmillan Co. [162] _Poems_ by W. B. Yeats, copyright by W. B. Yeats, New York, 1911, 1919, pp. 206, 207. By permission of the Macmillan Co. CHAPTER XVII