ABSTRACT
Date and circumstances of composition. The first drafts in WBY's Journal come between an entry for 23 Apr. 1909 and one for 27 Apr. 1909. WBY attended a Dublin gathering hosted by George Russell on 25 Apr., and a letter from Russell to JQ of 27 Apr. (Denson, 66) mentions how ‘Yeats was up with me the other night’: much of their conversation related to the fate of J.M. Synge's unfinished Deirdre MS, but Russell's eagerness to press on JQ the merits of James Stephens's soon to be published book of poems, Insurrections (which was dedicated to A.E.), is likely to have been replicated in talk that night with WBY, whose published support would have been invaluable. The other poets who might have been discussed are less easy to identify; but Padraic Colum has been suggested as one such. WBY's critical position on Stephens (and Colum) softened over the years.
