Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition

Background details and bibliographic information

To a Shade

Author: William Butler Yeats

File Description

Electronic edition compiled and proof-read by Beatrix Färber, Juliette Maffet

Funded by School of History, University College, Cork

1. First draft.

Extent of text: 590 words

Publication

Distributed by CELT online at University College, Cork, Ireland.
Text ID Number: E910001-008

Availability [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.

Sources

Bibliography
1. A 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
1. William Butler Yeats To a Shade in , Ed. William Butler Yeats Responsibilities and other Poems. The Macmillan Company, New York, (1916) 36–38

Encoding

Project Description

CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts

Sampling Declaration

The whole selection.

Editorial Declaration

Correction

Text has been proof-read twice.

Normalization

The electronic text represents the edited text. Lines (or parts of them) reproduced in italics in the printed edition are tagged hi rend="ital".

Hyphenation

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

Segmentation

div0 =the 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: By William Butler Yeats (1865–1939). (September 1914)

Use of language

Language: [EN] The poem is in English.

Revision History

• (2012-02-08)

  Beatrix Färber (ed.)

• File proofed (2), additions to encoding made; header completed; file parsed; SGML and HTML files created.
• (2012-02-01)

  Juliette Maffet (ed.)

• Header created.
• (2012-01-23)

  Juliette Maffet (ed.)

• First proofing.
• (2012-01-18)

  Juliette Maffet (file capture)

• Text captured by scanning.

Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition: E910001-008

To a Shade: Author: William Butler Yeats

p.36

1. If you have revisited the town, thin Shade,
   Whether to look upon your monument
   (I wonder if the builder has been paid)
   Or happier thoughted when the day is spent
   To drink of that salt breath out of the sea
   When grey gulls flit about instead of men,
   And the gaunt houses put on majesty:
   Let these content you and be gone again;
   For they are at their old tricks yet.
   A man
   Of your own passionate serving kind who had brought

   ---

   p.37

   In his full hands what, had they only known,
   Had given their children's children loftier thought,
   Sweeter emotion, working in their veins
   Like gentle blood, has been driven from the place,
   And insult heaped upon him for his pains
   And for his open-handedness, disgrace;
   An old foul mouth that slandered you had set
   The pack upon him.
   Go, unquiet wanderer,
   And gather the Glasnevin coverlet
   About your head till the dust stops your ear,
   The time for you to taste of that salt breath
   And listen at the corners has not come;

   ---

   p.38

   You had enough of sorrow before death—
   Away, away! You are safer in the tomb.