Letter from George Yeats to Thomas MacGreevy. 6 March 1939

[p.1 recto]

Riversdale,
Willsbrook,
Rathfarnham,
Dublin
Tel. 95758
March 6. 1939

My dear Tom

I cant send you one of the "formulas". WBY had, as you all know, been ill for a long time; but his vitality was so tremendous that until the Tuesday before he died the doctor thought he might live at least another six months. Even at 2 am on the morning of Saturday the doc: still thought he might "rally" although he was hardly conscious. He had a great deal of pain from Wednesday but it was partially relieved by morphia injections. Even on Thursday morning he managed to make 3 small corrections in recent poems.

He returns, by sea, to Sligo in September. That is earlier than he had asked — his actual words were "If I die here bury me up there and then in a year's time when the newspapers have forgotten me, dig me up & plant me in Sligo. He did not want the sort of funeral AE had – George Russell's funeral had distressed WBY because of its public display. ^note

Yours affly

George