The Tower

Abstract

When Yeats wrote in disillusion that all life seemed a preparation for something that never happens, he did not foresee that the preparation of his own life would be rewarded so fully in the 1920s. His early activities in revolutionary politics, especially his membership of the IRB, led to his Senatorship in the Irish Free State; his early dabbling with mysticism, theology and magic had prepared him for writing A Vision. These new resumptions of old pursuits were positive and, coming at an age when his disillusion might have been expected to kill all enthusiasm for aspects of life in which he had not found what he wanted, surprisingly they provided him with objects to which he could devote his energy and his capacity for service. They even brought him into fresh interests. Politics awakened his pride in the Anglo-Irish, in their history and characters; A Vision led him to history and philosophy.

And I, that count myself most prosperous,

Seeing that love and friendship are enough,

For an old neighbour’s friendship chose the house

And decked and altered it for a girl’s love,

And know whatever flourish and decline

These stones remain their monument and mine.

W. B. Yeats¹

We are at our tower and I am writing poetry as I always do here, and as always happens, no matter how I begin it becomes love poetry before I am finished with it.

W. B. Yeats²