Old Age

THE TOWER--William Butler Yeats-- Macmillan ($2.25). Of contemporary poets many are bold, curious, fascinating; few are enduring. One of the few is Yeats, who in his triumphant youth brandished the wild beauty of Ireland with rich imagery of folklore, and in his reluctant 60's writes _a slim volume on old age reduced to platonic abstractions. What shall I do with this absurdity 0 heart, 0 troubled heart--this caricature, Decrepit age that has been tied to me As to a god's tail? But even age cannot undo with argument Yeats' fantastic imagination: Valley, river, and elms, under the light of a moon That seems unlike itself, that seems unchangeable, A glittering sword out of the east. A puff of wind And those white glimmering fragments of the mist sweep by. A lover of fine typography, Yeats himself prints books. His press is part of the Cuala Industries run by the Yeats family --one sister manages the embroidery department, another the hand-press, and a brother designs hand-blocked prints. Versatile, Yeats does sketches for Punch (pseudonym, W. Bird) ; served in the Free State Senate since its origin. Resigned last month in favor of the easier Riviera, he will be missed for his infrequent but shrewd comment on political matters--he, the poet-creamer.