]> Towards Break of Day An electronic edition William Butler Yeats Electronic edition compiled and proof-read by Beatrix Färber Rebecca Daly School of History, University College, Cork First draft. 737 CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork
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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.

 Probably written in January 1919; first published in The Dial in November 1920 (A. Norman Jeffares, p. 234). Literature (a small selection) 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). Richard Ellmann, Yeats: The Man and the Masks. Corrected edition with a new preface (Oxford 1979). [First published New York 1948; reprinted London 1961.] Peter Allt and Russell K. Alspach, The Variorum Edition of the Poems of W.B. Yeats (New York: Macmillan 1957). F. A. C. Wilson, Yeats's Iconography (London 1960). W. B. Yeats, Essays and Introductions (New York: Macmillan 1961). W. J. Keith, 'Yeats's Double Dream', Modern Language Notes 76/8 (December 1961) 710–715. W. B. Yeats, Explorations: selected by Mrs W. B. Yeats (London/New York: Macmillan 1962). Richard Ellmann, The Identity of Yeats (New York 1964). A. Norman Jeffares, A New Commentary on the Poems of W.B. Yeats (Stanford 1984). 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 William Butler Yeats Towards Break of Day Richard J. Finneran The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats Macmillan Press London 1991 187

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 Janaury 1919 [?] The poem is in English. literary poetry W. B. Yeats 20c 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 Towards Break of Day 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? 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. 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. 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.