lyrical poetry - OUDL Home

"THENINETIES"and of Bailie and Aillinn, who died brokenhearted, wehear that:This young girl and this young manHave happiness without an end,Because they have made so good a friend.They know all wonders, for they passThe towery gate of Gorias,And Findrias and Falias,And long-forgotten Murias,Among the giant kings whose hoard,Cauldron and spear and stone and sword,Was robbed before the earth gave wheat;Wandering from broken street to streetThey come where some huge watcher is,And tremble with their love and kiss.Dwelling on these Irish legends and on the chan.. oftraditional spoken poetry Mr Yeats was attracted bythe thought of composing himself poems of the samepopular kind. He wrote a few quite simple songs andballads, The Lake Isle of Innisfree (his most popularsong), When You are Old, A Dream of a Blessed Spirit,The Stolen Child, and The Ballad of Molly Magee, TheBallad of Father Hart, The Ballad of the Foxhunter.Even in these there are touches alien to the genuinepopular song or ballad, and in his more characteristicThe Happy Townland and ''I went out to the hazelwood" the effect is one of extreme sophistication:The little fox he murmured," O what of the world's bane ? "The sun was laughing sweetly,The moon plucked at my rein ;But the little red fox murmured," O do not pluck at his rein,He is riding to the town-landThat is the world's bane."The quest of the exotic could hardly go farther.Mr