#dramatist

Portrait of playwright Lorraine Hansberry. Handwritten on back: "Hansberry, Lorraine, author, actress."

Eva Selina Laura Gore-Booth was an Irish poet and dramatist, and a committed suffragist, social worker and labour activist. She was born at Lissadell House, Co Sligo, the younger sister of Constance Gore-Booth, later known as the Countess Markievicz. Both she and Constance, who later became a prominent Irish revolutionary, reacted against their privileged background and devoted themselves to…

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire,

take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

(One of the last poems that W.B. Yeats wrote. Born 13 June 1865 – Died 28 January 1939)

Image of W.B. Yeats public domain by Charles George Beresford via Wikimedia Commons.