As is well-known, “Under Ben Bulben” is Yeats’s swan song. The last three lines of this poem, “Cast a cold eye / On life, on death. / Horseman, pass by!” is written on the tombstone of Yeats under his command. This epitaph shows that Yeats himself looked life and death in a cold eye.
As Yeats believed the regeneration of body and the eternity of soul, he could accept the death of his body serenely, I think. That is because he accepted some main thoughts of Buddhism. Or at least he found some similarity between the Irish thoughts and the Oriental thoughts.
This paper focused on examining Buddhist thoughts reflected in “Under Ben Bulben”, though in this poem, there was no word nor phrase indicating Buddhism. There were lots of words and phrases indicating Irish thoughts and Christianity, but nobody can deny that there lay Buddhist thoughts in the background.
In conclusion, Yeasts accepted Buddhism and adapted it to his purpose and created his religion.

• 최희섭(전주대) | Choi, Hie Sup