Produced by Meredith Bach and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) THE WILD SWANS AT COOLE [Illustration] THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK - BOSTON - CHICAGO - DALLAS ATLANTA - SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED LONDON - BOMBAY - CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO THE WILD SWANS AT COOLE BY W. B. YEATS New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1919 _All rights reserved_ COPYRIGHT, 1917 AND 1918, BY MARGARET C. ANDERSON. COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY HARRIET MONROE. COPYRIGHT, 1918 AND 1919, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1919. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. PREFACE This book is, in part, a reprint of _The Wild Swans at Coole_, printed a year ago on my sister's hand-press at Dundrum, Co. Dublin. I have not, however, reprinted a play which may be a part of a book of new plays suggested by the dance plays of Japan, and I have added a number of new poems. Michael Robartes and John Aherne, whose names occur in one or other of these, are characters in some stories I wrote years ago, who have once again become a part of the phantasmagoria through which I can alone express my convictions about the world. I have the fancy that I read the name John Aherne among those of men prosecuted for making a disturbance at the first production of "The Play Boy," which may account for his animosity to myself. W. B. Y. BALLYLEE, CO. GALWAY, _September 1918_. CONTENTS PAGE THE WILD SWANS AT COOLE 1 IN MEMORY OF MAJOR ROBERT GREGORY 4 AN IRISH AIRMAN FORESEES HIS DEATH 13 MEN IMPROVE WITH THE YEARS 14 THE COLLAR-BONE OF A HARE 15 UNDER THE ROUND TOWER 17 SOLOMON TO SHEBA 19 THE LIVING BEAUTY 21 A SONG 22 TO A YOUNG BEAUTY 23 TO A YOUNG GIRL 24 THE SCHOLARS 25 TOM O'ROUGHLEY 26 THE SAD SHEPHERD 27 LINES WRITTEN IN DEJECTION 39 THE DAWN 40 ON WOMAN 41 THE FISHERMAN 44 THE HAWK 46 MEMORY 47 HER PRAISE 48 THE PEOPLE 50 HIS PHOENIX 54 A THOUGHT FROM PROPERTIUS 58