On this date, January 28, 1939, the Irish poet, one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature, William Butler Yeats, died in Menton, France. Final arrangements for his burial in Ireland could not be made, so he was buried at Roquebrune, France. The intention of having his body buried in Sligo was thwarted when World War II began in the autumn of 1939. In 1948 his body was finally taken back to Sligo and buried in a little Protestant churchyard at Drumcliffe, under his own epitaph:
“Cast a cold eye
On life, on death.
Horseman, pass by!”
