Interesting: the one Yeats poem that comes to mind these days is this one (first stanza):
What need you, being come to sense, But fumble in a greasy till, And add the half-pence to the pence, And prayer to shivering prayer until You've dried the marrow from the bone. For men were born to pray and save! Romantic Ireland's dead and gone; It's with O'leary in the grave.
(I think it's right; I'm quoting from memory)
I have no quarrel with the observations made about Yeats' poetry on LBO -- the aesthetization of war, the nietzchean celebration of the warrior -- I don't know that it's really that bad with Yeats -- he contrasts it after all with a life spent in renunciation, accomodation, "praying and saving." In fact, as I pull in to my parking spot every morning and face up to the fact that I will be spending most of my energy and mental capacity to write books about a technology that is not needed and which has a half life of a couple of years...when I do this, one mad nihilist moment of violence and ESCAPE does not seem like such a bad idea.
Waiting for the barbarians:)
Joanna