I discovered today in my English class which poet we would be studying for our end of year exam and i’ve got to say, it’s infinitely better than what we were given last year (well-2 years for me, 1 for the rest of the class, but thats another story). We have been graced with the task of studying a great irish poet-W.B Yeats, who is perhaps best known for being awarded with the Nobel prize for literature in 1923. Here is a stanza of the first poem of his that we have studied in class. I would just like to emphasise that this is not my own work-it’s much to good for that.
The stolen child by W.B Yeats
“Where dips the rocky highland
Of sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we’ve hid out faery vats,
Full of berries
And the reddest stolen cherries
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.”
There are a further three stanzas, but isn’t that just fantastic poetry? such a vibrant scene is painted with those words and there is plenty of lovely irish-ness included just to add to the charm of the writing. I would recommend looking up the entire poem as it really only gets better, but hopefully you have got a brief glimpse into his work. So why have i posted somebody elses poetry on my blog? I never do that! After reading this and instantly loving the style, I decided that after i have read a little more of Yeat’s work, I will attempt to write something of my own in a similar style. If you like the work of W.B Yeats, then keep your eyes fixed on this blog, because hopefully in a few posts time there will be a poem in the style of his fabulous work! In the meantime you’ll just have to do with old poetry posts and anything that come between now and Yeat’s style post.
Thanks for reading and feel free to comment 🙂
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