Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet,
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

W.B. Yeats

Last Saturday I spent the evening at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Although the play that night was not the thing, the Abbey Theatre itself absolutely was. And has been for quite some time.

One of its most celebrated directors was William Butler Yeats, winner of the 1923 Nobel Prize for Literature. He was born in Dublin. He became a leading figure in the Irish Literary Revival, a late 19th and early 20th-century movement that aimed to revive ancient Irish folklore, legends and traditions in new literary works. He also founded the Irish Literary Theatre in 1899.

In 1888 he published The Wanderings of Oisin, a long narrative poem that established his reputation; and in 1893 he published The Celtic Twilight, a book of peasant legends. In total, he wrote nearly 30 plays and a number of books of poetry. His best poetry was inspired by his deep and unrequited love for Maud Gonne - an Irish actress and political activist - and his longing for the mythical “Irish Golden Age”.

Had the play that evening enjoyed the smallest fraction of intelligence exhibited in anything Yeats wrote, I would have stayed through the second act.

Next time, I imagine, will be different.