The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats, Vol. 3 (of 8) / The Countess Cathleen. The Land of Heart's Desire. The Unicorn from the Stars

A trio of lyrical dramas blends mythic atmosphere, music, and symbolic action to examine encounters between ordinary households and supernatural visitors. One play stages desperate choices amid hunger and otherworldly temptation; another portrays the seductive promise of an enchanted life offered to a young couple; the third presents collaborative mythic tableaux that fuse folkloric motifs and poetic stagecraft. Throughout, ritual, song, and evocative imagery take precedence over realistic explanation, and themes of sacrifice, desire, mortality, and the tension between earthly duties and transcendent longing recur across compact, mood-driven scenes.