William Butler Yeats - A Vision: The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, Volume XIV

THE COLLECTED WORKS OF W. B. YEATS

George Bornstein, George Mills Harper, and Richard J. Finneran, General Editors

V OLUME I T HE P OEMS

ed. Richard J. Finneran

V OLUME II T HE P LAYS

ed. David R. Clark and Rosalind E. Clark

V OLUME III A UTOBIOGRAPHIES

ed. William H. ODonnell and Douglas N. Archibald

V OLUME IV E ARLY E SSAYS

ed. Richard J. Finneran and George Bornstein

V OLUME V L ATER E SSAYS

ed. William H. ODonnell with Elizabeth Bergmann Loizeaux

V OLUME VI P REFACES AND I NTRODUCTIONS

ed. William H. ODonnell

V OLUME VII L ETTERS TO THE N EW I SLAND

ed. George Bornstein and Hugh Witemeyer

V OLUME VIII T HE I RISH D RAMATIC M OVEMENT

ed. Mary FitzGerald and Richard J. Finneran

V OLUME IX E ARLY A RTICLES AND R EVIEWS

ed. John P. Frayne and Madeleine Marchaterre

V OLUME X L ATER A RTICLES AND R EVIEWS

ed. Colton Johnson

V OLUME XI M YTHOLOGIES

ed. Jonathan Allison

V OLUME XII J OHN S HERMAN AND D HOYA

ed. Richard J. Finneran

V OLUME XIII A V ISION (1925)

ed. Catherine E. Paul and Margaret Mills Harper

V OLUME XIV A V ISION (1937)

ed. Margaret Mills Harper and Catherine E. Paul

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Copyright 1937 by W. B. Yeats

Copyright renewed 1965 by Bertha Georgie Yeats and Anne Butler Yeats

Jacket design by Julius Reyes

Jacket photograph Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Yeats, W. B. (William Butler), 18651939, author.

A Vision: The Revised 1937 Edition : the Collected Works of W. B. Yeats Volume XIV / William Butler Yeats ; edited by Margaret Mills Harper and Catherine E. Paul. Scribner hardcover edition.

pages cm. (The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats ; Volume XIV)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Yeats, W. B. (William Butler), 18651939KnowledgeOccultism. 2. OccultismIreland.3. Mysticism.I. Harper, Margaret Mills, 1957 editor. II. Paul, Catherine E., 1971 editor.III. Title.

PR5904.V52014

828'.807dc23

2014017856

ISBN 978-0-684-80734-8

ISBN 978-1-4767-9211-8 (ebook)

For Connie K. and Walter Kelly Hood

The editors gratefully acknowledge the extraordinary generosity of the Yeats family, the late Michael, Grinne, and Anne Yeats, and Caitrona Yeats, who, along with her siblings Siobhn, the late Sle, and Padraig Yeats, continues a legacy of unwavering support of those who cough in ink or pixels to edit and annotate the work of W. B. Yeats. Such magnanimity is rare, and all Yeats scholars are in their debt.

We also extend the first order of thanks to Walter and Connie Kelly Hood, the first designated editors of the 1937 A Vision for this series. To observe that this edition would not have been possible without their extensive archival and contextual work is to understate drastically, and we are deeply in their debt. Other scholars who have contributed generously include Jonathan Allison, Brian Arkins, George Bornstein, Ronald Bush, Wayne K. Chapman, Patricia Coughlan, Alex Davis, John Dillon, Wayne Erickson, Sr. Mary de Lourdes Fahy, Matthew Gibson, Warwick Gould, Mark Patrick Hederman OSB, Michael G. Kelly, Sr. Maria Kiely, Peter Liebregts, Neil Mann, Bernadette McCarthy, Gillian McIntosh, Mary Kathryn Mishler, Mitsuko Ohno, James Pethica, Laura Mernie Pomeroy, LeeAnne Richardson, Ronald Schuchard, Sanghita Sen, William David Soud, Deirdre Toomey, Wim Van Mierlo, and Tom Walker. We thank for superb research assistance Paula McGeever, Niall Jordan, Niamh OHehir, and Stephanie ORiordan (University of Limerick); Zachary Cromie and George DuBose (Clemson University); and Nancy Kojima and Jim Shimkus (Georgia State University).

Librarians who have given of their time and expertise include Tom Desmond, Catherine Fahy, Colette ODaly, and Pat Sweeney at the National Library of Ireland; Pattie Punch at the Glucksman Library, University of Limerick; Rebecca Drummond at the University Library, Georgia State University; Elizabeth Chase and colleagues at MARBL (Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Book Library), Emory University; Kristen Nyitray at Special Collections, Frank Melville, Jr., Memorial Library, Stony Brook University Libraries; staff of the Manuscript Reading Room and the Humanities Reading Rooms at the British Library (Macmillan archives); and staff at Thompson Library, Ohio State University; Harvard University Library; Trinity College Library; and the McClay Library, Queens University Belfast.

We are grateful for the financial support of the College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities and Department of English, Clemson University; the School of Languages, Literatures, Culture and Communication, University of Limerick; and the Department of English, Georgia State University. We extend special thanks to Richard W. Stoops, Jr., for unstinting technical support; George Bornstein, upon whom we have relied for clearheaded advice and assistance; and Samantha Martin and Ashley Gilliam, our patient and thoroughly helpful editors at Scribner.