THE WILD SWANS AT COOLE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

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MACMILLAN & CO., Limited

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THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.

TORONTO

THE WILD SWANS
AT COOLE

BY

W. B. YEATS

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1919

All rights reserved

Copyright, 1917 and 1918,
By MARGARET C. ANDERSON.

Copyright, 1918,
By HARRIET MONROE.

Copyright, 1918 and 1919,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1919.

J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

[v]

PREFACE

This book is, in part, a reprint ofThe Wild Swans at Coole, printed ayear ago on my sister's hand-pressat Dundrum, Co. Dublin. I havenot, however, reprinted a play whichmay be a part of a book of newplays suggested by the dance plays ofJapan, and I have added a numberof new poems. Michael Robartes andJohn Aherne, whose names occur inone or other of these, are charactersin some stories I wrote years ago,who have once again become a partof the phantasmagoria through whichI can alone express my convictionsabout the world. I have the fancy[vi]that I read the name John Aherneamong those of men prosecuted formaking a disturbance at the firstproduction of "The Play Boy," whichmay account for his animosity tomyself.

W. B. Y.

Ballylee, Co. Galway,
        September 1918.

[vii]

CONTENTS