Yeats’s “On a Child’s Death”: a Critical Note

Abstract

Yeats’s “On a Child’s Death” (see Plate 16) is transcribed into Lady Gregory’s copy of Poems (1899), now in the Robert W. Woodruff Library for Advanced Studies at Emory University (see p. 153 of this volume). That edition (Wade 17) was published in early May, and Yeats inscribed his copy to Lady Gregory in Dublin on 10 May 1899, during the opening performances of the Irish Literary Theatre. Why the poem bears the date 5 September 1893, and when it was transcribed into the volume are not known, but these questions raise further queries about Yeats’s knowledge of Maud Gonne’s child and about the circumstances that led him to unearth the poem at least six years later for private preservation. Some probable answers emerge from a chronological review of Yeats’s unrequited relationship with Maud Gonne in the 1890s.