William Butler Yeats is one of the greatest poets of the 20th century. Although he spent 14 years of his childhood in London, he maintained his cultural roots, featuring Irish legends and heroes in many of his poems, which are both locally and universally relevant, blending personal and public themes, Irish identity, and global perspectives. 

Read one of my favorite poems –

Never give all the heart, for love 

Will hardly seem worth thinking of 

To passionate women if it seem 

Certain, and they never dream 

That it fades out from kiss to kiss; 

For everything that’s lovely is 

But a brief, dreamy, kind delight. 

O never give the heart outright, 

For they, for all smooth lips can say, 

Have given their hearts up to the play. 

And who could play it well enough

If deaf and dumb and blind with love? 

He that made this knows all the cost, 

For he gave all his heart and lost.