?Inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation.? The Nobel Committee described William Butler Yeats?s poetry as such when in 1923 it awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature to him. The first Irish writer so honoured. Born and educated in Dublin, Yeats (1865?1939) was not only an important figure in the Irish Literary Revival, but also a fervent Irish nationalist. A pillar of both Irish and British literary establishments in the 20th century, in his later years he served as an Irish senator for two terms. He assisted in founding the Abbey Theatre. The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats showcases how he brilliantly made use of the saga of Celtic and Irish mythology, legends and personalities in his poems. Occultism was another. He took up personal themes too but he made it universal by relating it to the Irish folklore and mythology. His earliest volume of poetry was published in 1889. This definitive volume of Yeats?s poems maps his gradual transition from a romantic poet into a modernist one and documents how his poetry became darker, edgier and more concise in his later years.