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"I was twenty-three years old when the troubling of my life began I had never thought to see in a living woman so great beauty lineaments which Blake calls the highest beauty because it changes least from youth to age, and a stature so great that she seemed of a divine race." Thus wrote William Butler Yeats the first time he saw Maud Gonne, the woman to whom he addressed some of the most moving love poems in the English language. Though she refused to marry him, Maud reciprocated with an extraordinary friendship which lasted a lifetime. Maud married Irish rebel John McBride, and their divorce trial was an international scandal. Her son, Sean McBride, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1974. But most of all, British-born Maud loved Ireland and dedicated her life to fighting for its independence. Known as the "Irish Joan of Arc," she battled for exploited Irish tenant farmers, for starving Irish children, for the rights of women.
