'It's best for genuises to travel light'

 The other day I was startled to discover that I don't have a Yeats on my bedside bookshelves. I know I have at least one somewhere, but it/they must have been subsumed into the chaos that reigns on the other shelves in the house. So off I went to pick up a Yeats from one of the charity bookshops, two of which carry quite a lot of poetry, so surely.... Alas, I drew a blank at my favourite shop, so I tried a less favourite one. As I was scanning the poetry section, an amiable young volunteer who was shelving nearby asked me what I was looking for. The name Yeats clearly meant nothing to him, but he was interested enough to ask if he'd written anything he might know. I quoted a few old chestnuts – no country for old men, things fall apart, I will arise and go now, etc. – but no response. He's a student, he told me, studying speech and drama. Ah well. He asked me how Yeats was spelt, and obligingly went off and looked in the stockroom, but again no joy. However, continuing to scan the shelves, I spotted Gavin Ewart's Selected Poems, 1933-1993 (quite a run!), so I snapped that up. I've written about Ewart before (e.g. here). He was a poet who wrote mostly 'light verse', and whose range has been described as 'from rueful to raucous'. It could also be described as 'from serious to scabrous'. Here, from Selected Poems, is something fairly close to the 'serious' end, a typically shapely reflection on literary fame, contrasting the fate of Yeats and Shakespeare (and referencing Arnold's 'Others abide our question, thou are free').  

Yeats and Shakespeare

Somebody wrote somewhere (about Yeats) 
how even in those wasp-waisted days
before the First World War
(for twenty years reckoned among the Greats)
he was so spoiled by worship and by praise
he couldn't behave naturally any more,

as hostesses crept up behind his back
with every kind of social, sexual net
and pecking order snare; 
a lion with hyenas on his track
or hunters closing, they say, and yet
he never seemed to find this hard to bear.

Shakespeare was not so honoured in his life
though (for a player) he ended rich,
great ladies didn't swoon
to hear or see him; and a bitter wife,
it is presumed, told him the what and which
of all his faults, and told him pretty soon.

Arnold was John the Baptist, coming late
to smooth the way for universal awe,
but one thing he got right: 
Shakespeare was lucky not to be thought great
outside the Mermaid, or above the law.
It's best for geniuses to travel light.