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beliefs in a 2000-year cycle of existence: "The darkness drops again but now I know/ That twenty centuries of stony sleep/ Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,/ And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,/ Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"( The Second Coming, Michael Robartes and the Dancer.1919)

This range and versatility is the outcome of a lifetime of evolution, because Yeats is one of those rare breed of creative minds who can produce their best work in their waning years. Yeats was born on 13 June 1865, and came from an Anglo-Irish heritage. It was his mother who introduced him to Irish folktales which were to be an important influence on his poetry.

He had ideal parents for his profession as a poet, as recorded in his biography by L. Bogan, in "Yeats has told of the deep emotional reserves in his Sligo-born mother, "whose actions were unreasoning and habitual like the seasons. From his father, John Butler Yeats, a man of original mind who had been trained in the law but turned to painting and to the pre-Raphaelite enthusiasms current in the '70s and '80s, Yeats, according to Bogan, had learnt early that "intensity was important above all things."

Yeats was moved to London from Ireland when he was two, and remained there for all his schooling till he enrolled in the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin for two years in 1884, and here he saw the early beginnings of his poetry. In Dublin he made famous acquaintances like G.B. Shaw, and W.E. Henley, and soon began to publish poetry, and in 1889, came out with The Wanderings of Usheen [Oisin] which included works like The Ballad of Moll Magee, the traditional Irish song Down By The Salley Gardens and the well known The Stolen Child.

He began also to make contributions to collections like Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (1888), Irish Fairy Tales (1892), and A Book of Irish Verse (1895). But it was in 1889 that he was to meet his unrequited love, Maud Gonne, a poet in her own right as well as a feminist and an actress, who would eventually become the single most important influence in his life.

Five years later in 1894, Yeats became acquainted with Lady Augusta Gregory of Coole Park, who eventually became a friend and patron, and out of this was born The Irish Literary Theater, an important milestone in Irish cultural history. This theater would become the renowned Abbey Theater in 1904 which staged some of Yeats's major plays like The Countess Cathleen (1892), The Land of Heart's

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