William Butler Yeats ( Irlande 1865 – 1939 )
William Butler Yeats, poète irlandais, est le fils du peintre John Butler Yeats (1839–1922) et le frère de peintre Jack Butler Yeats (1871-1957).
Dans une première période, sa poésie privilégie la forme narrative, celle des légendes irlandaises et des poèmes d’amour, avant d’évoluer ( sans doute influencée par Ezra Pound) vers un style résolument moderne, au point de voir Yeats reconnu comme initiateur du renouveau de la littérature irlandaise, puis cofondateur de l’Abbey Theatre en 1904 à Dublin. Les luttes indépendantistes qui déchirent le pays servent de terreau à la poésie de ce farouche nationaliste, sénateur de l’État libre d’Irlande de 1922 à 1928,
En 1923, il reçoit le prix Nobel de littérature. Le Comité Nobel qualifie son œuvre de «poésie toujours inspirée, dont la forme hautement artistique exprime l’esprit d’une nation entière.»
Il se retire de la vie politique en 1930, et part vivre à Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, dans le Sud de la France, où il meurt le 28 janvier1939.
Sylvie-E. Saliceti
Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we’ve hid our faery vats,
Full of berries
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand.
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim grey sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And is anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
Away with us he’s going,
The solemn-eyed:
He’ll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than he can understand.
William Butler Yeats
The stolen child
Auteur : William Butler Yeats
Compositeur, interprète : Loreena McKennitt