W.B. Yeats

(1865-1939)

This is W. B. Yeats epigraph.

Cast a cold Eye

On Life, on Death.

Horseman, pass by!

If you think you understand what this tells us about the individual please contact me by e-mail at youremail@lamp.ac.uk.

An Acre of Grass

Picture and book remain,

An acre of green grass

For air and exercise,

Now strength of body goes;

Midnight, an old house

Where nothing stirs but a mouse.

My tempetation is quiet.

Here at life's end

Neither loose imagination,

Nor the mill of the mind

Consuming its rag and bone

Can make the truth known.

Grant me an old man's frenzy,

Myself must I remake

Till I am Timon and Lear

Or that William Blake

Who beat upon the wall

Till truth obeyed his call;

A mind Michael Angelo knew

That can pierce the clouds,

Or inspired by frenzy

Shake the dead in their shrouds;

Forgotten else by mankind,

An old man's eagle mind.

**Glossary**
5 An old house	Riversdale, Rathfarnham, County Dublin
13 Frenzy	wild excitement, paroxysm of madness
15 Timon and Lear	in Shakespeare's tregedies Timon of Athends and King Lear the tragic heroes Timon and Lear ask questions about existence with a great raging anger.