Reprisals. Rann, An Ulster Quarterly of Poetry. First and only publication of the last of Yeats poems in memory of Major Robert Gregory, Reprisals, in No. 2 of the Ulster poetry periodical Rann (Autumn 1948). It was published there to mark the return of Yeats remains to Sligo, and by the kindness of Mrs. Yeats. A very good copy in original wrappers. Yeats finished his poem in 1920, but withheld it from publication after a request from Lady Gregory, who thought the timing unpropitious, soon after the Bloody Sunday killings; probably the real reason was that she disliked the notion that her beloved son was cheated in death. With its powerful closing lines, it is a direct comment on the Black-and-Tan terror in rural Ireland. The passage about new-married women refers to Ellen Quinn, shot dead while holding her child outside her front door in Kiltartan, by men in a passing military lorry. The poem is not in any of Yeats collections, and is not in his Collected Poems.