Good fortune enabled me to visit Ireland with my father back in the ‘70s and then to revisit the land of my ancestors some 40 years later with my two sons. One of the links between those two trips was a visit to the gravesite of William Butler Yeats, arguably Ireland’s and the 20th century’s greatest poet.

Today, June 13, marks the 150th anniversary of Yeats’ birth. He died in 1939, in France, a few months shy of 74. He was buried in France but it wasn’t until 1948 when his body was exhumed (World War II caused the delay), brought back to Ireland and buried in a Protestant churchyard in Drumcliff, a small village in County Sligo.

That fulfilled the request he had made in his poem Under Ben Bulben, which was written toward the end of his life:

Under bare Ben Bulben’s head

In Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid

An ancestor was rector there

Long years ago; a church stands near

By the road an ancient Cross

No marble, no conventional phrase,

On limestone quarried near the spot

By his command these words are cut:

Cast a cold eye

On life, on death.

Horseman, pass by!

Part of Yeats’ appeal certainly stems from the breadth of his work, ranging as it does from mysticism to nature, from whimsy to growing old, from the sometimes pleasures of isolation to the follies of youth. He was also not averse to tackling the political issues of the day as his Easter, 1916, poem attests.

Certainly part of my affinity for poetry derives from my enjoyment of Yeats. And on two special occasions when I visited a churchyard in Drumcliff, I am immensely grateful that I did not pass by!