Under Ben Bulben by W.B. Yeats

I know I said I would get back to my spiritual rantings after some Whitman songs, yet the poetic interlude continues. Before I get back to my rogue wisdom, you have to swear you’re ready to listen. Maybe you’ll listen to somebody with some real clout, some real authority, such as Nobel prize winning poet and political revolutionary W.B. Yeats.

“Under Ben Bulben” was written during the last year of Yeats’s life. He died in January 1939, and “Under Ben Bulben” was published six months later in his final collection, Last Poems and Two Plays.

Thank you to the ghost of W.B. Yeats for the text, and to The Gloaming for the music, this band records the most moving songs in the world to my ears. If I ever make any money off this, I will happily give you half the profits. Thank you thank you, for all my listening over the years, and for creating this brilliant song which somehow matched up so naturally with this poem.