Yeats is without a doubt one of the most significant and influential poets of recent times, and probably the most important Anglo-Irish poet ever. His poems are deeply affecting, especially those concerning his unrequited love for Maud Gonne. They deal with diverse subjects like Irish politics of the time, the Republican movement, and more personal themes like love, growing old, death and the problems he saw facing an artist. My favourite poem is probably "Sailing To Byzantium;" "He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven" is beautiful too. I highly recommend this to anyone with even a passing interest in poetry.
Yeats's poem "The Second Coming" now seems the true herald of our time. Finneran's edition includes this poem in context, in its order in the development of Yeats's work. Read it as Yeat meant it to be read: followed by his equally great poem "A Prayer for my Daughter," where he offers hope in the beauty and innocence of personal ceremony. In a crowded, generic time, Yeats's poems are themselves ceremonies.
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