Lapis Lazuli written in March 1938 is a kind of a precious blue stone. The Lapis Lazuli referred to in this poem was given to Yeats on his seventieth birthday (as a present) by Mr. Harry Clifton. Clifton had sent him a present of a great piece carved by some Chinese sculptor into a semblance of a mountain, with temple, trees, paths, and an ascetic, and a pupil about to climb the mountain.
Yeats's Leda and the Swan is a sonnet based on Greek mythology, and one in which he interprets the rape of queen Leda by god Zeus as an incident of annunciation of a two thousand years' long phase of civilizational cycle in history. Yeats first dramatically presents the moment of the mythical rape of a Greek queen Leda by god Zeus in the form of a wild swan; then he goes on to contemplate its significance and consequence.
This sonnet, which was written in 1923, is one of the most perfect poems ever written by Yeats. This perfection was reached not initially but after at least six revisions and modifications. It is an amalgam of history, myth and vision. The poet has compressed within a narrow compass vast immensities and this fact has lent vigor and charm to the composition.
This strange visionary poem seems to anticipate the terrible history of coming violence and savagery of the Second World War. The "rough beast" referred to in the second last line of the poem might almost literally be identified with Hitler, whose career in politics was just beginning at the time the poem was written. The poet's mind was filled with gloom in consequence of the widespread murder and bloodshed in Ireland in the course of the Easter rebellion of 1916.
In The Second Coming poet's mind was filled with gloom in consequence of the side-spread murder and bloodshed in Ireland in the course of the Easter rebellion of 1916. The Irish civil war that followed the great war of 1914-1919 and various other events in Europe added to that gloom. The poem is the outcome of a state of mind troubled with ominous forebodings. The title of the poem suggests a new manifestation of God to man.
Yeats's Easter 1916 is a profoundly ambiguous poem which strongly states that Ireland and the Irish people have been utterly changed. Yeats celebrates the memory of the general individuals who blindly sacrifices their lives in the Easter Rebellion despite the fact that they would certainly be defeated by the English government. Yeats, as a tribute to the martyrs, immortalizes them in his poetry by mentioning their names for their ability to transform themselves and the history of Ireland.
Easter 1916 is a poem that refers to the Irish revolutionary upsurge of Easter 1916, when the revolutionary planned unsuccessfully to overthrow the British reign in Ireland; the immature plan had turned out a big failure.
Among School Children which was inspired by the poet’s visit to a convent school, possess the problem of aging and sets forth his philosophy of organic wholeness and unity of existence. When the poet as a senator visits the school, he looks at the children and meditates on aging.
The poem Among School Children was written in 1926 by WB Yeats after he visited to a convent school. After the restoration of independence in Ireland, WB Yeats became the Senator in parliament. As a public man, he visited schools so as to find the quality of education and the problems faced by the schools. In this poem, we see the poet as an academician, as the critic of philosophy, as the lover of Maude Gonne, and as the supporter of organicity.
A Prayer for My Daughter exposes the typical modernist sentiment of the poet. The poet has portrayed a way of life and would like his daughter to adopt it. The kind of philosophy, he formulates in the poem is oriented towards an emphasis on the importance of tradition, custom and culture in the modern world which is dominated by chaos. The tradition, custom, culture is certainly aristocracy.