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"Yet, bathed in gloom too long, we might / Forget how we imagined light." - The Twilight of Earth
Published in September 1935, just two months after his death, A.E wrote of Selected Poems, "If I should be remembered I would like it to be for the verses in this book. They are my choice out of the poetry I have written." A.E's life-long friend and sometimes rival, W.B. Yeats, observed that his poetry expresses "something that lies beyond the range of expression", and that he has within him "the vast and vague extravagance that lies at the bottom of the Celtic heart." To commemorate the 150th anniversary of A.E.'s birth, Swan River Press is pleased to reissue this career-spanning collection of poems from a key artist of the Celtic Revival. This volume includes selections from The Earth Breath, Voices of the Stones, The House of the Titans, and others, introducing a new generation to Ireland's foremost mystical poet.
About the author
George William Russell (1867-1935) - who published as "A.E." - was a poet, painter, economist, and mystic. In 1897 he started work with Sir Horace Plunkett's Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, editing their journal The Irish Homestead. In addition to numerous volumes of poetry, essays, and mystical writings, A.E. also nurtured the careers of Ireland's most important writers, including Patrick Kavanagh, James Stephens, and James Joyce. Highly regarded in life, on his death A.E.'s funeral cortège was over a mile long.
