The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats, Vol. 3 (of 8): The Countess Cathleen. The Land of Heart's Desire. The Unicorn from the Stars

In Short

This collection gathers three of the most significant dramatic works by W. B. Yeats. Set against the backdrop of an impoverished, myth-steeped Ireland, the plays explore the spiritual crises of characters caught between material desperation and the lure of the infinite. Whether portraying a countess sacrificing her soul to save her people, a girl choosing a faery existence over domestic life, or a visionary attempting to "break" the world, these works remain enduring for their lyrical beauty and their unflinching examination of the high, often terrible price of idealism.

The Story

In The Countess Cathleen, a great famine grips Ireland. Demons disguised as merchants arrive to exploit the starving, offering gold for the peasants' souls so they might survive. The Countess Cathleen, witnessing the devastation, exhausts her vast wealth to buy back the souls of her people. When her money runs out, she realizes the demons will continue their work unless she makes the ultimate sacrifice. In a final, desperate act, she sells her own soul to the merchants to save the souls of the starving, and in doing so, finds her own salvation through divine intervention.

The Land of Heart’s Desire shifts the focus to a rural home on May Eve, a night when the veil between the human and the faery world is thin. Maire Bruin, a young bride struggling with the monotony of her new domestic life, becomes captivated by a mysterious faery child who wanders into the house. The child, radiant and otherworldly, sings of a land without age or sorrow, promising an eternal, ethereal existence. Despite the desperate pleas of her husband, Shawn, and the local priest, Father Hart, Maire is drawn away from her hearth, abandoning her human life to follow the child into the shadows.

The Unicorn from the Stars features Martin Hearne, a visionary coach-maker who falls into a trance after staring at a gilded ornament. In his visions, he sees unicorns trampling the wheat and grapes of the world, a symbol of divine, destructive power. Upon waking, he interprets this as a command to "destroy" all that sits between humanity and God. He gathers a ragtag band of local outcasts and thieves to lead a revolt against the "Lion"—the established order and the Crown. His crusade turns violent and chaotic, fueled by his belief that the world must be broken to be reborn. The rebellion ends in failure and the destruction of the coach-maker’s own workshop. Martin, who has been drifting between this world and his visions throughout the ordeal, ultimately dies or passes into a final, silent trance, leaving his followers to mourn their lost leader and the broken remnants of their failed dream.

How It Unfolds

The famine begins. The play introduces a desperate peasant household where the hunger of the people has become so absolute that they are vulnerable to the promises of dark, otherworldly merchants.

The bargain is struck. The merchants systematically buy the souls of the starving, causing the local community to slide into moral and spiritual decay as the Countess attempts to intervene.

The countess’s sacrifice. Realizing that charity alone cannot stop the merchants, the Countess trades her own soul for the safety of her people, leading to her death and a miraculous final act of redemption.

The faery arrival. In the second play, the tranquility of a marriage is disrupted when a strange, golden-haired child enters the home, singing of a realm of "continual festival."

The pull of the land. The child seduces the restless young bride with visions of an eternal, non-human existence, causing her to reject her family and her faith to vanish into the night.

The visionary’s trance. In the final play, the coach-maker falls into a deep sleep and receives a radical, destructive command from a divine vision he experiences while his mind is elsewhere.

The crusade for destruction. Guided by his interpretation of the "unicorns," he organizes a rebellion to overthrow the existing order, only to witness his movement descend into plunder and chaos.

The final silence. The revolution collapses, and the visionary passes into a state beyond human understanding, leaving his broken followers to ponder the nature of the "queer" and shifting world.

The People

Countess Cathleen represents the archetype of noble self-sacrifice. She is driven by a deep, unwavering pity for the poor, and her journey moves from the status of a wealthy benefactor to that of a spiritual martyr who loses her life to preserve the souls of others.

Maire Bruin acts as the restless heart of her household. She is trapped between the expectations of her mother-in-law and the love of her husband, Shawn. Her desire for something beyond the domestic "griddle" makes her the perfect prey for the faery child, and she ends her life as a creature of legend rather than a woman of the world.

Martin Hearne is a man of "immoderate thought." He is obsessed with the nature of truth and is essentially an outsider, even among his own family. He seeks to align his life with a divine command, but his inability to distinguish between the holy and the merely destructive makes him a tragic figure who leaves behind more ruin than enlightenment.

The First Merchant serves as the cold, calculating antagonist. He is a tempter who finds pleasure in the methodical dismantling of human morality. He is not just a thief of souls, but a spirit of chaos who aims to "quench the stars" and overturn the hierarchy of heaven.

In Its Own Voice

"The demons hold our hearts between their hands, for the apple is in our blood, and though heart break there is no medicine but Michael’s trump."

Oona reflects on the inescapable nature of human suffering and the waiting for divine release.

"I saw the unicorns trampling the wheat and breaking it on stones, and then they tore down what were left of grapes and crushed and bruised and trampled them."

Martin describes the terrifying, destructive vision that defines his mission in life.

"The young must sigh through many a dream and hope, but you are wise because your heart is old."

The faery child compliments the wisdom of age while preparing to lure the young away from their mortal lives.

What It's Really About

These plays grapple with the tension between the mundane duties of life and the violent, all-consuming pull of the supernatural. The central question is whether a human being can remain whole while pursuing an ideal that exists outside the bounds of human experience. The works suggest that both total self-sacrifice and total rebellion against the world carry a heavy, often fatal price. The hunger for meaning—whether that hunger is for bread, for beauty, or for a direct, destructive encounter with God—is presented as an inherent, dangerous, and perhaps defining trait of the human spirit.

Why Read It Today

Reading these plays is an atmospheric, demanding experience. You will find yourself immersed in a world where the line between prayer and madness is razor-thin, and where the language is thick with the rhythms of Irish folklore and the weight of ancient tragedy. Readers who appreciate the intersection of high poetry and dark, existential drama will find these works profoundly moving. However, be prepared for the book's period attitudes and the occasionally dense, mythic dialogue, which reflect the author's specific preoccupation with creating an Irish national literature.

The struggle of these characters—to find a way to live when the structures of faith and community feel insufficient—will resonate with anyone who has ever felt at odds with the "ordinary" world. What stays with you is not just the tragedy of the famine or the chaos of the rebellion, but the haunting, lyrical insistence that there is something inside the human heart that refuses to be content with a stable, secure, or conventional life. It is a book for those who like their literature to feel like a whisper from the past, reminding us that the most dangerous, beautiful things are often those that cannot be held in the hand.