The chief poet of the 'Celtic twilight' was born seventy years ago today at Sandymount, near Dublin. He published his first book of poems, 'The Wanderings of Oisin', at twenty-four, but it was not until four or five years
later that he attracted general attention with his poetic plays, "The Countess Cathleen" and "The Land of Heart's Desire". Since then his position as a leader in the renaissance of Irish literature has never been challenged.
Ireland saluted him in 1922 by making him a senator of the Free State; the wider world the year after by the award of the Nobel Prize for Literature. He has something to say to everyone, from the simple lover of haunting word-music who cherishes ' The Lake-Isle of Innisfree' to the mystic and metaphysician who can follow him into the secret recesses of 'The Tower' and 'The Winding Stair'.