My parents had Clancy Brothers at Carnegie Hall on vinyl, and we listened to it constantly. It was the background of my childhood. I memorized “O’Driscoll Host of the Air” (having no idea it was by William Butler Yeats) probably by the time I was 4. “Host of the Air” is not one of his great poems (like “Sailing to Byzantium,” “The Second Coming,” or “Among Schoolchildren”) but it is one of his most beloved.
Yeats is woven into my family life, and my connection with Yeats, through my father, was the subject of my first published piece, in 2006, in The Sewanee Review. It was called “Two Birds.” Which had to do with Flann O’Brien’s book, of course, but also had to do with Yeats’ “Wild Swans at Coole”, and how I put those references together in my mind, age 7, 8. Birds seemed to be everywhere in these Irish references from my Dad, and I tried to make sense of it.
The back cover of The Sewanee Review, where my essay was excerpted. It was a moment where I actually shared space – equal space – with William Trevor. A major moment.
There is much to say about Yeats, and I’ve said it before in the past, and the Irish Times has a fantastic page devoted to Yeats’ 150th: Go check it out – so much good stuff.
Yeats makes me think of Dad. Thank you, Dad, for raising us in a home filled with references like this, filled with books and adult interests and stories to be told of times in the past, of towering figures like Yeats, or Maud Gonne, or James Joyce, or Lady Gregory. You shared that stuff with us. It was the atmosphere we breathed.
Happy birthday, Yeats.
My father at Yeats’ grave
What a rich culture your dad gave to you. A well spent life, it seems.
I only knew about Yeats when I learnt a song called Down by the Salley Gardens, when I was a young girl. I have read more now about Yeats and it always impress me, but my favorite poem is that first one. The economy of words, the wisdom of old age when you realice how stupid some of your choices were, when life is much more simple, the beauty of the rhyme, the sentimentality of that age.
I will take my Yeats volumen to read at home after work today, thank you.
Clary – I don’t know that song – I’ll have to seek it out. Thank you!!