Under Ben Bulben, a homage to William Butler Yeats
Under bare Ben Bulben's head Cast a cold eye - the final stanza of W.B. Yeat's prophetic poem: "Under Ben Bulben" While on the drive down the west coast of Ireland on the N15 approaching Sligo city, we stopped to admire the sculpted beauty of Ben Bulben Mountain with its contours beautifully accented by the late afternoon light. Further down the road, while passing through the small village of Drumcliff, I recall, I had a quick impression of a roadside sign indicating the burial site of W.B. Yeats at the next left turn. On an impulse, we pulled into the small and deserted parking lot beside an old walled graveyard and chapel. It was late in the afternoon, and a golden light was illuminating the foliage and gravestones around us. A flock of chattering birds in the trees was the only other visitors to the place besides us. We made our way into the churchyard and found Yeats' grave stone, with his haunting epitaph, in a quiet corner near the chapel. I recall having a distinct feeling of another presence in that deserted place, but graveyards always seem to do that to me anyway. After my return to the States from Ireland, a good friend invited me to join a small group of “Eirenophiles” on Sunday evenings to watch a series of DVD’s produced by the Great Courses entitled: Irish Identity and Culture. The presenter is Dr. John Connor, a professor of English and Irish Studies at Washington and Lee University. The course is a collection of half-hour lectures on significant historical events, as well as on the political and literary personalities of that time. All the lectures are engaging and very informative. Collectively they have re-connected me to aspects of my heritage that I knew very little about. One of the connections was to one of the greatest literary figures of Ireland, if not the Western world, William Butler Yeats. I had never read his "Under Ben Bulben" poem and I did not know a great deal about him when I initially made these photos. It was after learning about him in the course and reading his poetry that I came upon the idea of the connection between these images and the author of the poem. It's a bit accidental and perhaps even mystical and transcendental, but a coincidence that I'm sure even old W.B. would appreciate.
"By his command these words are cut: ...."
You can read the entire poem here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43298/under-ben-bulben Comments
There are a limitless number of alternatives here! By and by, I like to photo pay telephones and bikes, just as nature shots highlighting a solitary tree, and I've been developing a serious assortment of these topics in the course of recent years. Presently, at whatever point I'm out with my Nikon.
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