ABSTRACT
Among those 'blotted out' is Lady Gregory, who died in 1932.. A year ago I found I had written no verse for two years: I had
never been so long barren; I had nothing in my head, and there used to be more than I could write. Perhaps Coole Park, where I had escaped from politics, from all that Dublin talked of, when it was shut, shut me out from my theme; or did the subconscious drama that was my imaginative life end with its owned1
His friends have gone; the Irish political scene has changed beyond recognition; but the oracle, Shelley's ancient philosopher in the shell-strewn cavern by the Mediterranean,2 who might be Oedipus, or Ribh the heretic Hermit-Saint, or Yeats himself - an Irish Delphic oracle - in the 'Cleft that's christened Alt', near Sligo, accepts the mutability of things:
Out of cavern comes a voice, And all it knows is that one word 'Rejoice!' Conduct and work grow coarse, and coarse the soul. ...
