The Winding Stair and Other Poems

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The Winding Stair is a volume of poems by William Butler Yeats, published in 1933. It was the next new volume after 1928's The Tower.

The title refers to the staircase in the Thoor Ballylee castle which Yeats had purchased and lived in with his family for some time. Yeats saw the castle as a vital connection the aristocratic Irish past which he admired. The phrase "winding stair" is used in the book's third poem, "A Dialogue of Self and Soul."

Though this volume includes more poems than The Tower, it contains fewer famous ones. The most well-known and frequently anthologized by far are "A Dialogue of Self and Soul" and "Byzantium."

"A Dialogue of Self and Soul" depicts two aspects of Yeats' personality in confrontation. His soul rejects mundane concerns in favor of metaphysical contemplation, while his self (which sits with an ancient Japanese sword on its lap) cherishes worldly concerns and affirms the sufferings of Yeats' life. Self is given the final word.

"Byzantium" is a sequel to "Sailing to Byzantium," (from The Tower), meant to better explain the ideas of the earlier poem.

[edit] Contents

In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markiewicz

Death

A Dialogue of Self and Soul

Blood and the Moon

Oil and Blood

Veronica's Napkin

Symbols

Spilt Milk

The Nineteenth Century and After

Statistics

Three Movements

The Seven Sages

The Crazed Moon

Coole Park, 1929

Coole and Ballylee, 1931

For Anne Gregory

Swift'S Epitaph

At Algeciras—a Meditation upon Death

The Choice

Mohini Chatterjee

Byzantium

The Mother of God

Vacillation

Quarrel in Old Age

The Results of Thought

Gratitude to the Unknown Instructors

Remorse for Intemperate Speech

Stream and Sun at Glendalough