

#Towards Break of Day


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#### Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition


### Background details and bibliographic information


Towards Break of Day
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Author: William Butler Yeats
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### File Description

Electronic edition compiled and proof-read by Beatrix Färber, Rebecca Daly

Funded by School of History, University College, Cork 1. First draft.Extent of text: 737 words#### Publication


CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork  
College Road, Cork, Ireland—http://www.ucc.ie/celt

 (2014) Distributed by CELT online at University College, Cork, Ireland.  
Text ID Number: E910001-062Availability [RESTRICTED] 
The works by W. B. Yeats are in the public domain. This electronic text is available with prior consent of the CELT programme for purposes of private or academic research and teaching.


#### Notes

Probably written in January 1919; first published in *The Dial* in November 1920 (A. Norman Jeffares, p. 234).

#### Sources


**Literature (a small selection)**2. W. B. Yeats, The Autobiography of William Butler Yeats, consisting of Reveries over childhood and youth, The trembling of the veil, and Dramatis personae (New York 1938).
3. Richard Ellmann, Yeats: The Man and the Masks. Corrected edition with a new preface (Oxford 1979). [First published New York 1948; reprinted London 1961.]
4. Peter Allt and Russell K. Alspach, The Variorum Edition of the Poems of W.B. Yeats (New York: Macmillan 1957).
5. F. A. C. Wilson, Yeats's Iconography (London 1960).
6. W. B. Yeats, Essays and Introductions (New York: Macmillan 1961).
7. W. J. Keith, 'Yeats's Double Dream', Modern Language Notes 76/8 (December 1961) 710–715.
8. W. B. Yeats, Explorations: selected by Mrs W. B. Yeats (London/New York: Macmillan 1962).
9. Richard Ellmann, The Identity of Yeats (New York 1964).
10. A. Norman Jeffares, A New Commentary on the Poems of W.B. Yeats (Stanford 1984).
11. A general bibliography is available online at the official web site of the Nobel Prize. See: http://nobelprize.org/nobel\_prizes/literature/laureates/1923/yeats-bibl.html
**The edition used in the digital edition**2. William Butler Yeats Towards Break of Day in , Ed. Richard J. Finneran The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. Macmillan Press, London, (1991) pages 187

### Encoding


#### Project Description


CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts


#### Sampling Declaration


The whole poem.


#### Editorial Declaration


##### Correction


The text has been proof-read twice.


##### Normalization


The electronic text represents the edited text.


##### Hyphenation


The editorial practice of the hard-copy editor has been retained.


##### Segmentation


div0= the individual poem, stanzas are marked lg.


##### Interpretation


Names of persons (given names), and places are not tagged. Terms for cultural and social roles are not tagged.


### Profile Description


Created: (Janaury 1919 [?]) #### Use of language


##### Language: [EN] The poem is in English.


### Revision History


* (2014-05-02) Beatrix Färber (ed.)

* TEI header created with bibliographical detail. File parsed and validated; SGML and HTML files created.
* (2014-05-01) Rebecca Daly (ed.)

* Structural markup applied according to CELT practice.
* (1996) Students at the CELT Project, UCC (ed.)

* First proofing.
* (1996) Donnchadh Ó Corráin (data capture)

* Text captured




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#### Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition: E910001-062


### Towards Break of Day: Author: William Butler Yeats




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p.187


1. Was it the double of my dream 
  
The woman that by me lay 
  
Dreamed, or did we halve a dream 
  
Under the first cold gleam of day?
2. I thought: 'There is a waterfall 
  
Upon Ben Bulben side 
  
That all my childhood counted dear; 
  
Were I to travel far and wide 
  
I could not find a thing so dear.' 
  
My memories had magnified 
  
So many times childish delight.
3. I would have touched it like a child 
  
But knew my finger could but have touched 
  
Cold stone and water. I grew wild. 
  
Even accusing Heaven because 
  
It had set down among its laws: 
  
Nothing that we love over-much 
  
Is ponderable to our touch.
4. I dreamed towards break of day, 
  
The cold blown spray in my nostril. 
  
But she that beside me lay 
  
Had watched in bitterer sleep 
  
The marvellous stag of Arthur, 
  
That lofty white stag, leap 
  
From mountain steep to steep.










