The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics (1892) is a collection by W. B. Yeats. It contains his verse play The Countess Cathleen and early lyrics such as The Lake Isle of Innisfree and When You Are Old, written for Maud Gonne.
The play
During a famine in Ireland, two demons disguised as merchants buy the souls of starving peasants. The Countess Cathleen sells her own soul to save her people, and is saved in turn by heaven.
Yeats wrote the part for Maud Gonne, the actress and revolutionary he loved; it was staged in Dublin in 1899 at the start of the Irish Literary Theatre.
The lyrics
The Lake Isle of Innisfree, written in London in 1888, expresses the longing for a small island on Lough Gill, in County Sligo, where Yeats had spent his childhood summers.
When You Are Old, freely inspired by a sonnet of Ronsard, imagines Maud Gonne in old age, remembering the one man who loved her pilgrim soul.
Maud Gonne
Yeats met Maud Gonne in 1889 and proposed to her several times; she always refused. She inspired many of his finest poems.
In 1923 Yeats became the first Irishman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Anecdotes
A noisy premiere
At the first performance of The Countess Cathleen in 1899, some students protested against what they saw as an insult to Irish Catholics; police were present in the theatre.
Innisfree on the radio
Yeats recorded himself reading The Lake Isle of Innisfree for the BBC in the 1930s, chanting it in a slow, musical voice.
Frequently asked questions
Who was the Countess Cathleen written for?
For Maud Gonne, whom Yeats loved.
Where is Innisfree?
A small island on Lough Gill, in County Sligo, Ireland.
Which French poet inspired When You Are Old?
Pierre de Ronsard.