

#On a Political Prisoner


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#### Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition


### Background details and bibliographic information


On a Political Prisoner
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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: 794 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: E910001-063Availability [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

Written between 10 and 29 January 1919; first published in *The Dial* in November 1920 (A. Norman Jeffares, p. 231).

#### 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. W. B. Yeats, Essays and Introductions (New York: Macmillan 1961).
6. W. B. Yeats, Explorations: selected by Mrs W. B. Yeats (London/New York: Macmillan 1962).
7. Richard Ellmann, The Identity of Yeats (New York 1964).
8. Marjorie Perloff, 'Spatial Form in the Poetry of Yeats: The Two Lissadell Poems', Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 82/5 (October 1967) 444–454.
9. A. Norman Jeffares, A New Commentary on the Poems of W.B. Yeats (Stanford 1984).
10. Terry Eagleton, 'Politics and Sexuality in W.B. Yeats', The Crane Bag 9/2 (1985) 138–142.
11. Adolphe Haberer, 'Yeats and MacNeice: From Context to Intertext', Irish University Review 27/2 (Autumn/Winter 1997) 219–235.
12. George Bornstein, 'W. B. Yeats's Poetry of Aging', The Sewanee Review 120/1 (Winter 2012) 46–61.
13. 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 On a Political Prisoner in , Ed. Richard J. Finneran The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. Macmillan Press, London, (1991) pages 186

### 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: (January 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: E910001-063


### On a Political Prisoner: Author: William Butler Yeats




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p.186


1. She that but little patience knew, 
  
From childhood on, had now so much 
  
A grey gull lost its fear and flew 
  
Down to her cell and there alit, 
  
And there endured her fingers' touch 
  
And from her fingers ate its bit.
2. Did she in touching that lone wing 
  
Recall the years before her mind 
  
Became a bitter, an abstract thing, 
  
Her thought some popular enmity: 
  
Blind and leader of the blind 
  
Drinking the foul ditch where they lie?
3. When long ago I saw her ride 
  
Under Ben Bulben to the meet, 
  
The beauty of her country-side 
  
With all youth's lonely wildness stirred, 
  
She seemed to have grown clean and sweet 
  
Like any rock-bred, sea-borne bird:
4. Sea-borne, or balanced on the air 
  
When first it sprang out of the nest 
  
Upon some lofty rock to stare 
  
Upon the cloudy canopy, 
  
While under its storm-beaten breast 
  
Cried out the hollows of the sea.










