Yeats's greatest collection — including 'Sailing to Byzantium,' 'Leda and the Swan,' 'Among School Children,' and 'The Second Coming' — written at the peak of his powers.
'Sailing to Byzantium': old age and the desire for the permanence of art over the biological flux of life — 'an aged man is but a paltry thing, / A tattered coat upon a stick.' 'Leda and the Swan': the annunciation of Greek history through divine violence. 'Among School Children': the aged man looking at children wondering 'how can we know the dancer from the dance?' A volume of sustained poetic mastery matched by very few collections in English.
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