Yeats' life as a woman

Yeats' Crazy Jane avatar appears in poems ranging from the late 1920s until his very last collected work. She is literally a descent. Naughty (what's the difference between a solid man and a coxcomb?), sexy and maybe mad; and he puts her through it.

She can says things he can't say.

Crazy Jane talks with the Bishop

I met the Bishop on the road

And much said he and I.

'Those breasts are flat and fallen now,

Those veins must soon be dry;

Live in a heavenly mansion,

Not in some foul sty.'

'Fair and foul are near of kin,

And fair needs foul,' I cried.

'My friends are gone, but that's a truth

Nor grave nor bed denied,

Learned in bodily lowliness

And in the heart's pride.

'A woman can be proud and stiff

When on love intent;

But Love has pitched his mansion in

The place of excrement;

For nothing can be sole or whole

That has not been rent.'