Uploaded March 2015 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Here's the great William Butler Yeats reading his exquisite poem "The Host Of The Air " This poem is an English version of an old Gaelic (Irish) ballad which the poet heard sung and translated in Ballisodare, County Sligo. In the original poem, the husband (O'Driscoll) finds mourners weeping for his wife when he comes home.
Yeats tells a story about a man who works apparently as a kind of game-keeper driving water-fowl from reed beds (perhaps for wildfowlers to shoot). He falls asleep and has a strange dream about his newly-wed wife. First he sees a group of dancers, then he is invited to eat bread and drink wine, which have magical qualities* . Next he is invited to play cards with a band of old men, while his bride is stolen from him by a handsome young man. At this, he scatters the cards away and wakes, only to hear, still playing the strange piping music he heard in his dream.
*“The host of the air” refers to the bread and wine. In the Roman Catholic church service of mass, the bread and wine represent Jesus, who is the "Host" of the meal which the worshippers share.
Kind Regards
Jim Clark
All rights are reserved on this video recording copyright Jim Clark 2015
Here's the great William Butler Yeats reading his exquisite poem "The Host Of The Air " This poem is an English version of an old Gaelic (Irish) ballad which the poet heard sung and translated in Ballisodare, County Sligo. In the original poem, the husband (O'Driscoll) finds mourners weeping for his wife when he comes home.
Yeats tells a story about a man who works apparently as a kind of game-keeper driving water-fowl from reed beds (perhaps for wildfowlers to shoot). He falls asleep and has a strange dream about his newly-wed wife. First he sees a group of dancers, then he is invited to eat bread and drink wine, which have magical qualities* . Next he is invited to play cards with a band of old men, while his bride is stolen from him by a handsome young man. At this, he scatters the cards away and wakes, only to hear, still playing the strange piping music he heard in his dream.
*“The host of the air” refers to the bread and wine. In the Roman Catholic church service of mass, the bread and wine represent Jesus, who is the "Host" of the meal which the worshippers share.
Kind Regards
Jim Clark
All rights are reserved on this video recording copyright Jim Clark 2015
