He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

(1865-1939) was an Irish poet and one of the foremost figures of twentieth century literature. In 1923 he was the first Irishman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Yeats is generally considered one of the few writers who completed their greatest works after being awarded the Nobel Prize; such works include The Tower (1928) and The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1929). Yeats was born in Dublin and educated there and in London. He studied poetry in his youth and from an early age was fascinated by both Irish legends and the occult. Those topics feature in the first phase of his work, which lasted roughly until the turn of the twentieth century. His earliest volume of verse was published in 1889. From 1900, Yeats's poetry grew more physical and realistic.