I.
In 1888, as a young man, William Butler Yeats found himself in a novel predicament. Having come to his first séance in the hope of making contact with spirits, he felt a tremor, a spasm, a convulsion that flung him into the wall. The circle thought he must be a medium. He steadied himself and sat back at the table. Awaking from mesmerized sleep, the medium leading the circle warned of great danger and began trying to ward off the spirits. Yeats convulsed and broke the table, his friend prayed to the Virgin and the Father. Knowing no prayers in the moment, Yeats declaimed the opening lines of Paradise Lost — and all was still.