In my mid-twenties I was fascinated with Yeats - especially that Byzantium-era stuff. I recently stumbled back onto his poems, and found myself more pleased by The Man Who Dreamed of Fairyland. I thought I'd go back and investigate his earlier poems. I ended up reading the collected poems cover to cover, over the course of about a month. I read Under Ben Bulben last night.The appearance of this poem in Slate had an As Fate Would Have It, almost Yeatsian quality for me.

It's been great fun to perne in this gyre. There are some great poems I hadn't read before. I had this idea that reading them in order might make some things clear. I was right. I'd suggest that this is a great autobiography, and recommend it. Most of the things you might want to google are clarified. I mean: it's all there. There's this girl he calls Helen...he does assume you know what he means when he talks about the Post Office. It's a good book.

I too enjoy re-reading poems that I first encountered decades ago. Such a difference the way I read them now! Either the poet or I have learned a lot over the years....

(remember that quote by Twain about how, when he was 16, he thought his father did know much, but when he turned 21, he was amazed at how much his father had learned in the interim.....)

Re-reading! You two are recounting the story of my life. (Or one of them.)

(As this "Classic Poem" notion exemplifies.)

Someone says that each book or poem reads the reader: works like "Adam's Curse" read me different ways at different times, over the years.