Poetry of William Butler Yeats

While reading law at the Irish Bar, John Butler Yeats met Susan Pollexfen, the sister of an old school friend. They married in 1863. Susan’s father, William, owned a milling company and shipping firm in Sligo.

John and Susan Butler Yeats had six children, four of whom survived. William Butler Yeats, the eldest, was born in 1865. Elizabeth and Susan (Lilly and Lolly) got almost no recognition in their lifetimes, despite being accomplished craftswomen, and publishers (Cuala Press) who published much of Yeats’ work. Jack B Yeats was an accomplished painter.

In 1867, John B. Yeats gave up the practice of law and started a career as an artist. He moved Susan and the children to London. The family spent their holidays every year in Sligo and lived there between 1872 and 1874.

In 1881, the Yeats family moved to Dublin, at first living near the sea at Howth, and later moving to Harold’s Cross.

As a youngster, William dabbled in writing plays and poems and became more and more interested in using Irish history and stories as themes for his writing. Yeats’ writings began to be published in newspapers and journals.

He had very little formal education, and probably would be diagnosed as dyslexic today. His first work, an epic poem, The Wanderings of Oisín, was published in 1887. It was written in the

form of a dialogue between St. Patrick and Oisín, the ancient Irish hero. Yeats was immediately recognised as a significant poet.

Throughout the 1890’s, Yeats became fascinated by the occult, ritual magic and mystic Celtic tales, all of which were to influence his writings.

In 1889, William met Maud Gonne. He fell in love with her immediately and over the years asked her to marry him four times. They never married but she became an inspiration for his poetry and he wrote many poems about her and for her.

Yeats met Lady Augusta Gregory in 1896. The following summer he spent two months at her house, Coole Park, in Galway, the first of many summers he spent there. They collected folklore together and she provided him with space to write.

About this time Yeats also became interested in poetic drama and proceeded to write many verse plays. Yeats and others set up the Irish National Theatre Society to perform plays with a distinctly Irish theme. Early productions included John Millington Synge’s In the Shadow of the Glen and Yeats’ own The Shadowy Waters. This led to the establishment of the Abbey Theatre in 1904. In January 1907, the Abbey put on a new play by J.M. Synge, The Playboy of the Western World. Audiences were outraged and riots ensued.

In 1903, Yeats embarked on his first lecture tour of the USA. This was followed by further tours in 1911, 1914, and 1920. These enabled him to earn substantial sums of money.

Yeats was very aware of the politics of the time. He supported the workers in the 1913 Dublin Lockout. He also supported Lady Gregory and Hugh Lane in their efforts to establish a modern art gallery in Dublin.

Ezra Pound, then a young American poet, introduced Yeats to the stylised Japanese Noh drama which immediately influenced his writings. He used this form of drama in At the Hawks Well, first performed in London in 1916.

The Easter Rising of 1916 took Yeats by surprise. Having previously bemoaned the fact that: “Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, It’s with O’Leary in the grave” (from September 1913), Yeats was shocked at the execution of the leaders of the Rising. “What is it but nightfall? No, no, not night but death; Was it needless death after all? For England may keep faith /For all that is done and said. We know their dream; enough /To know they dreamed and are dead;” - from Easter 1916

Iseult Gonne Rejected by Maud Gonne, Yeats turned to her daughter, Iseult, when she was aged 23, who also rejected him. Three weeks later, he married Bertha Georgie Hyde Lees, who adored him. They were married on October 20th, 1917, when Yeats was aged 52, and she was aged 25. His nickname for her was George.

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Life and Career

Shortly after the marriage, George attempted “automatic writing” a form of writing supposedly coming from spiritual sources. Yeats was so excited by this that he pledged the remainder of his life to “explaining and piecing together those scattered sentences”. George’s automatic writing formed the basis of A Vision first published in 1926.

Yeats bought Thoor Ballylee, a ruined Norman tower house in Gort, Co. Galway for £35. He and George renovated it and spent many summers there.

William and George’s daughter, Anne was born in 1919, followed by a son, Michael, two years later. He was appointed to the Senate, the Upper House of parliament of the newly formed Irish Free State

in 1922. As the War of Independence raged in Ireland, Yeats, now living in Oxford, denounced the British policy in Ireland.

In March 1922, Yeats moved from Oxford to 82 Merrion Square, Dublin. In 1923, Yeats travelled to Stockholm, Sweden, to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. Yeats took an interest in education, and went on a tour of primary schools which led to him writing

the poem Among Schoolchildren, in which he depicts himself as “a sixty year old smiling public man”. Yeats’ last play, Purgatory, was produced in the Abbey Theatre on August 10th, 1938, a few months

before his death. During the 1930’s Yeats was troubled more and more by ill health and underwent several operations.

He died on January 28th, 1939 in France and was buried at Roquebrune. In 1948, Yeats’ body was returned to Ireland and reinterred in Drumcliff Churchyard, Sligo. It is

doubtful that the bones laid there are actually his.

“Under Bare Ben Bulben’s headIn Drumcliff Churchyard Yeats is laid.An ancestor was rector thereLong years ago, a church stands near,By the road an ancient cross.No marble, no conventional phrase;On limestone quarried near the spotBy his command these words are cut:

Cast a cold eyeOn Life, on death,Horseman, pass by.”

- from Under Ben Bulben

The Lake Isle of Innisfree; The Rose (1893).

2 Background

'The Lake Isle of Innisfree' was written in 1888. Yeats was in London, looking in a shop window at a little toy fountain, at a time when he was very homesick. He said the sound of the 'tinkle of water' reminded him of 'lake water'. He was longing to escape from the grind of everyday life and he wrote an 'old daydream of mine'. A somewhat altered version was first published in the National Observer in December 1890, to much acclaim; this really was the poem that first made Yeats’s name outside Ireland. Yeats had been greatly influenced by the vision of self-sufficiency in nature found in Henry David Thoreau’s book Walden (1854), which his father had read to him. And Yeats, too, dreamed of living alone in nature in a quest for wisdom. Innisfree is an uninhabited island in Lough Gill in Co Sligo, a place with which Yeats was very familiar. This timeless poem has long been a favourite with exiles everywhere, as it expresses a longing for a place of deep peace.

Stanza one: The tone in stanza one is deliberate, not casual, as the poet announces his decision to go. There are biblical overtones here: 'I will arise and go to my father,' as the prodigal son announces in Mark Chapter 15. This adds to the air of solemnity. The poet describes the idyllic life of self-sufficiency: 'nine bean-rows' and 'a hive for the honey-bee'. These details give the poem a timeless quality as the poet lives 'alone in the bee loud glade'.

Stanza two: The poet describes Innisfree so vividly that the future tense of 'I will arise' gives way to the present: 'There midnight's all a glimmer'. The repetition of 'peace' and 'dropping' lulls us into a sense of tranquillity. Beautiful imagery brings us through the day, from the mists of the morning which lie like carelessly thrown veils over the lake to the blazing purple of the heather under the midday sun. But there is also a strange, slightly unreal quality about it. The light is different: noon is a ‘purple glow’. The archaic language in the expression of ‘midnight’s all a glimmer’ reinforces the strange, even magical nature of the atmosphere. Co. Sligo is one of the few places in the country that provides an all-year-round habitat for the linnet, a small unspectacular bird that likes rough hillsides and uncultivated lands near the sea. Yeats is celebrating the indigenous wildlife of the area.

Stanza three: The third stanza repeats the opening, giving the air of a solemn ritual taking place. The phrase ‘always night and day’ could also be a Biblical allusion. Saint Mark’s gospel (5:5) refers to a man possessed by an evil spirit who was freed from his torment by Christ: ‘Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and bruising himself with stones.’ If the allusion is intended, the implication is that going to Innisfree will set the poet free.

His vision of happiness is a romantic one – a simple, unsophisticated lifestyle in an unspoilt habitat, surrounded by the sights and music of nature. It is a picture full of the rich textures of colour, sound and movement, in total contrast to his present environment, that of the cold, colourless and lifeless ‘pavements grey’. So in one sense the poem can be read as an expression of Yeats’s romanticised and nostalgic yearning for his native countryside. But it is also more than this. For it is no frivolous weekend in the woods that he is planning: it is rather a quest for wisdom, for deep, eternal truths – an attempt to see into the heart of things. This is the sentiment that comes across in the first line.

Apart from the obvious repetitions of the end rhymes in alternate lines, there are subtle musical vowel repetitions throughout the poem. For example, there is a profusion of long ‘i’ sounds in the first stanza (‘I’, ‘arise’, ‘Nine’, ‘I’, ‘hive’) and a repetition of long ‘o’ and ‘a’ sounds in the final stanza (‘go’, ‘low’, ‘shore’, ‘roadway’, ‘core’ and ‘day’, ‘lake’, ‘pavements’, ‘grey’). The repetition, particularly of long broad vowels, gives this a languidness and soporific calmness that belies the tension at the heart of it, between the poet’s desires and his present reality. In stanza two, the starry night, which can only be seen in the clear skies of the countryside, is vividly described as 'midnight's all a glimmer', with slender vowel sounds suggesting the sharp light of the stars. The soft ‘l’, 'm' and 'p sounds in this stanza create a gentle and magical mood.

The verbal music in the third stanza is striking, as the broad vowel sounds slow down the line, 'I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore', emphasising peace and tranquillity. Notice the alliteration of ‘l’ and the assonance of 'o' all adding to the serene calm of the scene. The only contemporary detail in the poem is 'pavements grey', suggesting the relentless concrete of the city.

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Summary and analysis

Form and structure

The exile's awareness of what he loves is eloquently expressed as he declares he hears the sound 'in the deep heart's core'. Notice the monosyllabic ending, which drums home how much he longs for this place. Regular end rhyme (abab) and the regular four beats in each fourth line reinforce the harmony of this peaceful place.

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,And evening full of the linnet's wings.

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,I hear it in the deep heart's core.

September 1913 Responsibilities (1914)

Yeats had been a great supporter of Sir Hugh Lane, (Lady Gregory’s nephew) who had offered his extensive art collection to the city of Dublin, provided the paintings would be on show in a suitable gallery. There were all sorts of ambitious plans, including a gallery that would span the Liffey. When the authorities failed to respond properly, Lane withdrew his offer. The controversy infuriated Yeats, who criticised Dublin Corporation for being miserly and anti-cultural. For him, it represented a new low in the country's drift into vulgarity and crass commercialism. The year as 1913 was also a year of great hardship, partly because of a general strike and lock-out of workers. Poverty and deprivation were widespread at the time, particularly in Dublin's tenements. This poem was written in September 1913 and was first published on 8 September in the Irish Times, where it was entitled ‘Romance in Ireland (on reading much of the correspondence against the Art Gallery)’.

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Background

In 1907, on the death of the old Fenian John O’Leary, Yeats wrote an essay entitled ‘Poetry and tradition’, in which he talks about the ideals that he and O’Leary had discussed and shared. Though the primary emphasis is on poetry and culture, it also reflects Yeats’s notions of the ideal society. According to Yeats, three types of men have made all beautiful things: aristocracies have made beautiful manners, because their place in the world puts them above the fear of life; countrymen have made beautiful stories and beliefs, because they have nothing to lose and so do not fear; and artists have made all the rest, because providence has filled them with recklessness. These three classes are the ones who preserve a long tradition, but also bring about needed change.

So for Yeats, the really important elements of society were the aristocracy, country people and artists. He was bitterly disillusioned with the changes in society, such as in land ownership, that hastened the demise of the aristocracy. A new upper and lower middle class emerged. Yeats despised this new Ireland of small shopkeepers, clerks and traders. He believed their only preoccupations were making money and practising a fearful, debased version of religion.

The rhetorical opening is sharply sarcastic, as the poet depicts the petty penny-pinching shopkeepers who 'fumble in a greasy till'. Yeats's tone is as angry as it is ironic: 'For men were born to pray and save'. Images of the dried bone and 'shivering prayer' are equally forceful - the poor are exploited by ruthless employers and a domineering Church. This disturbing picture leads the poet to regret the loss of ‘Romantic Ireland' in the concluding refrain.

Stanza two : Yeats contrasts the present with the heroism and generosity of an earlier era. Ireland's patriots - 'names that stilled' earlier generations of children - could hardly have been more unlike the present middle class. Yeats clearly relates to the self-sacrifice of idealistic Irish freedom fighters: 'And what, God help us, could they save?' The heroes of the past were so selfless that they did not even concern themselves with saving their own lives.

Stanza Three: The wistful and nostalgic tone of stanza three is obvious in the rhetorical question about all those Irish soldiers who had been exiled in the late 17th century. Yeats's high regard for these men is evoked by comparing them to 'wild geese', a plaintive metaphor reflecting their nobility. (The Wild Geese were Irish soldiers forced into exile in Europe after 1691. The Williamite War in Ireland (1688–1691)—Irish: Cogadh an Dá Rí, meaning "war of the two kings"—was a conflict between Jacobites (supporters of the English Catholic King James II) and Williamites (supporters of the Dutch Protestant Prince William of Orange) about who would be King of England, Scotland and Ireland. James left Ireland after a reverse at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 and the Irish Jacobites were finally defeated after the Battle of Aughrim in 1691. More broadly, the term "Wild Geese" is used in Irish history to refer to Irish soldiers who left to serve in continental European armies in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.)

Yet the poet's admiration for past idealism is diminished by the fact that such heroic dedication was all for nothing. The repetition of 'for this' hammers home Yeats's contempt for the current middle classes. In his roll of honour, he singles out the most impressive Anglo-Irish patriots. In using the phrase 'All that delirium of the brave', Yeats suggests that their passionate dedication to Irish freedom bordered on frenzy. This romanticised appreciation continues into the final stanza, where the poet imagines the 'loneliness and pain' of the heroic dead. The contrast between an idealised past and a most imperfect present continues. He argues that the establishment figures of his own time would be unable to comprehend anything about the values and dreams of 'Romantic Ireland'. At best, they would be confused by the ludicrous self-sacrifice of the past. At worst, the present generation would accuse the patriots of being insane or of trying to impress friends or lovers. 'Some woman's yellow hair' might well refer to the traditional symbol of Ireland as a beautiful woman, that is, Kathleen Ni Houlihan. The poet's disgust on behalf of the patriots is rounded off in the last two lines: 'But let them be, they're dead and gone'. The refrain has been changed slightly, adding further emphasis and a sense of finality.

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Summary and analysis

After reading this savage satire, we are left with a deep sense of Yeats's bitter disillusionment towards his contemporaries. It isn't surprising that some critics have accused Yeats of over-romanticising the heroism of Ireland's past, and of being narrow-minded and elitist in his view of the world.

September 1913 is written as an adapted ballad, with a clear chorus. Two ballad quatrains (four line stanzas) are combined to make one stanza. It has a simple ABABCDCD rhyme scheme, as sometimes simple structures and strong rhyme carry political messages better. Many ballads employ repetition. The bitter contempt Yeats feels is hammered home through the repetition of ‘For this… for this… for this.’

He uses certain words as a form of attack against the materialistic Irish – ‘fumble’, ‘greasy’, ‘shivering’, ‘dried’, ‘bone’. The repetition of ‘dead’, ‘gone’, and the use of ‘grave’ emphasises the depressing state of the country as Yeats sees it. Phrases like ‘God help us’ and ‘Let them be’ show how fed up the poet is. The depression comes through even in the language he uses when referring to the heroes he admires – ‘hangman’s rope’, ‘grey wing’, ‘blood’, ‘delirium’, ‘exiles’, ‘loneliness’, ‘pain’.

This poem is built on contrast – an extreme, somewhat simplistic contrast between a present and a past generation, or what Yeats sees as representative figures from these generations. Their power and the reverence due to them is summed up in ‘the names that stilled your childish play’ and in the reference to their going ‘about the world like wind’. He empathises with their loneliness and pain and inevitable fate:

But little time had they to pray

For whom the hangman’s rope was spun,

And what, God help us, could they save?

His undoubted admiration for their selfless courage is carried in ‘They weighed so lightly what they gave’ and in that ‘delirium of the brave’. In contrast, the new middle class is lampooned in the caricature of the shopkeeper as a kind of sub-human creature, fumbling, shivering, and certainly not capable of understanding more noble motives. The tone of savage mockery is often achieved by the use of irony – for example the perverse irony of ‘What need you, being come to sense’ – or the ironic statement, ‘For men were born to pray and save.’ Disdain rings through these lines. Altogether this is a poem exhibiting passionate and contrasting emotions.

What need you, being come to sense,But fumble in a greasy tillAnd add the halfpence to the penceAnd prayer to shivering prayer,

Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,It's with O'Leary in the grave.

The names that stilled your childish play, They have gone about the world like wind,

Was it for this the wild geese spreadThe grey wing upon every tide;

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Form and structure

Key Quotes

All that delirium of the brave?

'Some woman's yellow hairHas maddened every mother's son':

But let them be, they're dead and gone,They're with O'Leary in the grave.

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The Wild Swans at Coole The Wild Swans at Coole (1917)

'The Wild Swans at Coole' was written in 1916. Yeats loved spending time in the West, especially at Coole Park, the home of Lady Gregory, his friend and patron. He was 51 when he wrote this poem, which contrasts the swans' beauty and apparent seeming immortality with Yeats's ageing, mortal self. In the summer of 1916, Yeats went to France to Maud Gonne. Her husband, Major John MacBride, had been shot for his part in the Easter Rising. She was working as a volunteer nurse with the war wounded, and Yeats once again proposed marriage to her. On her refusing for the last time he contemplated the possibility marrying her daughter, Iseult, who perhaps unsurprisingly, also turned him down? Perhaps the disparity in their ages triggered this reflection on age and love?

The poem opens with a tranquil, serene scene of autumnal beauty in the park at Lady Gregory's home in Galway. This romantic image is described in great detail: the 'woodland paths are dry'. It is evening, 'October twilight'. The water is 'brimming'. The swans are carefully counted, 'nine-and-fifty'. The use of the soft letters '1', 'm' and ‘s’ emphasise the calm of the scene in stanza one. Traditionally, swans mate for life. Some have seen the unpaired swan as Yeats himself.

Stanza Two: He begins to speak personally, and recalls that it is nineteen years since he first counted the swans. The word 'count' links the two stanzas. The poet’s counting is interrupted as these mysterious creatures all suddenly rise into the sky. Run-on lines suggest the flowing movement of the rising swans. Strong verbs ('mount', 'scatter') reinforce this elemental action. The great beating wings of the swans are captured in the onomatopoeic 'clamorous wings'. They are independent and refuse to be restrained. The ring is a symbol of eternity. The swans are making the same patterns as they have always made; they are unchangingThe spiral imagery of the 'great broken rings' is reminiscent of the spirals seen in ancient carvings representing eternity. Yeats believed there was a cyclical pattern behind all things. The swans can live in two elements, water and air, thus linking these elements together. Is there some significance, though, in the fact the rings are broken? Is it meant to reflect the poet’s brokenness?

Stanza three: Stanza two is linked to stanza three by the phrases ‘I saw' and 'I have looked'. Now the poet tells us his 'heart is sore'. He has taken stock and is dissatisfied with his emotional situation. He is fifty-one, alone and unmarried and concerned that his poetic powers are lessening: 'All's changed'. He laments the loss of his youth, when he 'Trod with a lighter tread'. Nineteen years earlier, he was much more carefree. The noise of the beating wings of the swans is effectively captured in the compound word 'bell-beat'. The alliterative 'b' reinforces the steady, flapping sound. The poet is using his intense personal experiences to express universal truths.

In Irish mythology, the Children of Lir are condemned to wander from lake to lake, until they hear the bell of the Christian saint, who rescues them from their unnatural exile. Yeats reverses the symbolism here…it is the swans who represent the natural, with their ‘bell-beat’ and he is in exile.

Stanza four: The swans are symbols of eternity, ageless, and 'unwearied still'. They are united, 'lover by lover'. They experience life together ('Companionable streams'), not on their own, like the poet. He envies them their defiance of time: 'Their hearts have not grown old'. They are full of 'Passion or conquest'. By contrast, he is indirectly telling us, he feels old and worn out. The trees are yellowing ('autumn beauty') and the dry 'woodland paths' suggest the lack of creative force which the poet is experiencing. Only the swans transcend time.

Stanza five: This is linked to the previous stanza by the repetition of 'still'. The swans have returned to the water, 'Mysterious, beautiful'. The poem ends on a speculative note as the poet asks where they will 'Delight men's eyes'. Is he referring to the fact that they will continue to be a source of pleasure to someone else long after he is dead? The poet is slipping into the cruel season of winter while the swans infinitely 'drift on the still water'.

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Background

Summary and analysis

Perhaps that is what he fears at the end of the poem, in that final plaintive image: that the poetic sight or vision will have deserted him and passed to others. For him, the swans are in some way a manifestation of his poetic vision. So we can see that he explores:

• the personal loss of youth, passion, and love

• the consequences of ageing

• the passage of time and the yearning for changelessness and immortality

• the loss of poetic power and vision – the sense of failure.

The poem is written in a regular stanza form. There are five six-line stanzas. The rhyme scheme in each stanza is a-b-c-b-d-d. Interestingly, the rhythm changes quite a bit, but the rhyme scheme is regular. Generally, the lines alternate between four beat and three beat lines:

‘Under…the October…twilight…the water

Mirrors…a still…sky’

The impact may be that even though he is feeling inner turmoil, it has not overwhelmed him.

Because of the verse form chosen by Yeats, the repetition creates a regular and simple sound, helped by the use of full rhyme. The short lines slow us down and create an air of calm, stillness and sorrow.

The woodland paths are dry,

The nineteenth autumn has come upon me

And scatter wheeling in great broken ringsUpon their clamorous wings.

And now my heart is sore.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,

Their hearts have not grown old;

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Form and structure

Key Quotes

Among what rushes will they build,By what lake's edge or poolDelight men's eyes when I awake some dayTo find they have flown away?

An Irish Airman Foresees his Death (First published in the second edition of The Wild Swans at Coole (1919))

The Irish airman in this poem is Major Robert Gregory (1881-1918), son of Yeats's close friend, Lady Gregory. He was shot down and killed at the age of thirty-seven while on service in northern Italy during World War 1. Yeats saw Gregory as an educated aristocrat and all round Renaissance man (‘Soldier, scholar, horseman, he’). He was also an energetic boxer and hunter and a painter who designed sets for Yeats’s own plays.

The airman Gregory is essentially a solitary figure, like other mythic figures created by Yeats, such as the ‘Fisherman’. Some critics read this poem as a classic statement of Anglo-Irishness as Yeats saw it. In later life Yeats used to talk about the ‘Anglo-Irish solitude’. Is there a sense here of not quite fully belonging to either side, of being neither fully committed English nor unreservedly Irish? There is certainly a sense of emotional distance on the part of the subject, both from those he guards and those he fights. Though he has an affinity with Kiltartan’s poor (‘my countrymen’), he is aware that the war and his involvement in it will have no impact on their lives. In general, the feeling one gets is of some detachment from the events in which he participates, and this could be read as a metaphor for ‘Anglo-Irish solitude’.

In this poem, Yeats expresses what he believes is the airman's viewpoint as he comes face to face with death. A fatalistic acceptance is present in the opening line. The poem's title also leads us to believe that the speaker has an intuitive sense that his death is about to happen. But despite this premonition, he seems strangely resigned to risking his life. But there is never a sense in which this fatalism is merely weak surrender or opting out. He accepts his fate, he consents to his death, but in the way of one of Homer’s heroes. Yeats gives Gregory Homeric stature by allowing him to choose a heroic death; and this gives meaning to an otherwise meaningless conflict. In lines 3-4, he makes it clear that he neither hates his German enemies nor loves the British and their allies. His thoughts are with the people he knows best back in Kiltartan, Co. Galway. Major Gregory recognises the irony of their detachment from the war. The ordinary people of his homeland are unlikely to be affected at all by whatever happens on the killing fields of mainland Europe. In line 9, the speaker takes time to reflect on why he joined the air force and immediately dismisses the obvious reasons of conscription ('law') or patriotism ('duty'). As a volunteer, Gregory is more openly cynical of the 'public men' and 'cheering crowds' he mentions in line 10. Like many in the military who have experienced the realities of warfare, he is suspicious of hollow patriotism and has no time for political leaders and popular adulation.

At one obvious level of reading, this is a type of elegy in memory of the dead man. But it is a variation on the form, in that it is structured as a monologue by the dead man rather than the more usual direct lament by a poet, praising the person’s good qualities and showing how he is much missed, and so on. It makes an interesting contribution to war poetry in its attempt to chart the motivation and psychological state of the volunteer. What strikes one immediately is not just the fatalism – he knows his death is imminent – but the bleakness of his outlook on life, his disenchantment with living, despite his privileged background. The years to come seemed waste of breath, A waste of breath the years behind… In contrast, the war seemed an adventure, an ‘impulse of delight’, a ‘tumult in the clouds’. The poem captures well the excitement and exhilaration felt by many a volunteer. As Ulick O’Connor put it (in The Yeats Companion, 1990), ‘There can seldom have been a better summing up of the sense of elation which the freedom to roam the uncharted skies brought to the young men of Gregory’s pre-1914 generation.’

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I know that I shall meet my fate

Those that I fight I do not hate,Those that I guard I do not love;

A lonely impulse of delight

The years to come seemed waste of breath,A waste of breath the years behindIn balance with this life, this death.

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Easter 1916 Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921).

On Monday, 24th April 1916 a force of about seven hundred members of the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army took over the centre of Dublin in a military revolution and held out for six days against the British army. At first the rising did not receive widespread support; but the British military authorities regarded it as high treason in time of war, and the subsequent systematic executions of fifteen of the

leaders between 3 and 12 May brought a wave of public sympathy and created heroes and martyrs for the Republican cause. Though Yeats’s poem was finished by September 1916 and a number of copies had been printed privately, it was not published until October 1920, when it appeared in the New Statesman.

In the opening stanza, Yeats recalls how he used to meet some of the people who were later involved in the Easter Rising. He was unimpressed by their 'vivid faces' and he remembers routinely dismissing them with 'polite meaningless words'. His admission that he misjudged these insignificant Republicans as subjects for 'a mocking tale or a gibe' among his clever friends is a reminder of his derisive attitude in

'September 1913'. Yeats faced honestly and generously in the first section of this poem the diplomatic difficulty of having to recant his views on Irish society. Technically he achieved this by structuring the poem as a palinode or recantation of his opinions in the earlier ‘September 1913’. Recreating the drab, unexciting milieu of pre-revolution evenings, the poet acknowledges his own blindness and failure to engage with these people in any depth: Before 1916, Yeats had considered Ireland a ridiculous place, a circus 'where motley is worn'. But the poet confesses that the Rising transformed everything - including his own condescending apathy. In the stanza's final lines, Yeats introduces what becomes an ambivalent refrain ending in 'A terrible beauty is born’ .

Stanza two: His sense of shock and the need to completely re-evaluate his views is developed here. The poet singles out individual martyrs killed or imprisoned for their activities, among them his close friend Countess Markiewicz. He also mentions Major John MacBride, husband of Maud Gonne. Although he had always considered MacBride as little more than a 'drunken, vainglorious lout', Yeats now acknowledges that he too has been distinguished by his bravery and heroism. The poet wonders about the usefulness of all the passion that sparked the rebels to make such a bold move, but his emphasis is on the fact that the people as well as the whole atmosphere have changed. Even MacBride, whom he held in utter contempt, has grown in stature.

Stanza three: Yeats takes powerful images from nature and uses them to explore the meaning of Irish heroism. Only a stone, usually taken as a metaphor for the fanatical heart, can change or trouble the course of a stream, and it can achieve this only at a price. The heart will lose its humanity: ‘Too long a sacrifice/ Can make a stone of the heart.’ In the 1909 Journals Yeats had already written about the effects of political fanaticism on Maud Gonne, in metaphors akin to those used here:

Women, because the main event of their lives has been a giving of themselves, give themselves to an opinion as if it were some terrible stone doll… They grow cruel, as if in defence of lover or child and all this is done for something other than human life. At last the opinion becomes so much a part of them that it is as though a part of their flesh becomes, as it were, stone, and much of their being passes out of life.

In this third section Yeats is exploring the dangers of fanatical devotion to a cause or ideal, and he represents this metaphorically as the conflicting forces between a stone and a stream. The living are a picture of constant change, natural life and energy. The seasons are changing ‘through summer and winter’; the skies change ‘from cloud to tumbling cloud’; all is life and regeneration, as ‘hens to moor-cocks call’. It is full of transient animal and human appearances, as they slide or plash or dive. And all this activity happens ‘minute by minute’. Against this stream of ever-changing energy and life is set the unmoving stone, the fanatical heart. It is not difficult to conclude that the weight of the poet’s sentiment is with the living stream rather than the unmoving stone. And yet out of this confrontation is born the ‘terrible beauty’.

For the poet, the Rising presented many contradictions, as he weighs the success of the revolt against the shocking costs. In contrasting the inflexibility of the revolutionaries with the 'living stream', he indicates a 12

Background

Summary and analysis

reluctant admiration for the rebels' dedication. Does Yeats suggest that the rebels risked the loss of their own humanity, allowing their hearts to harden to stone? Or is he also thinking of Maud Gonne and blaming her cold-hearted rejection of him on her fanatical political views?

Stanza four: The poet returns to the metaphor of the unmoving stone in a flowing stream to warn of the dangers of fanaticism. The rhetorical questions about the significance of the rebellion reveal his continuing struggle to understand what has happened. Then he asks the single most important question about the Rising: 'Was it needless death after all', particularly as 'England may keep faith' and allow Ireland its independence, all of which would prompt a more disturbing conclusion, that the insurgents died for nothing. Yeats quickly abandons essentially unanswerable questions about the value of the Irish struggle for freedom. Instead, he simply pays tribute to the fallen patriots by naming them tenderly, 'As a mother names her child'. The final assertive lines commemorate the 1916 leaders in dramatic style. Setting aside his earlier ambivalence, Yeats acknowledges that these patriots died for their dreams. The hushed tone is reverential, almost sacred. The rebels have been transformed into martyrs who will be remembered for their selfless heroism 'Wherever green is worn'. The insistent final refrain has a stirring and increasingly disquieting quality. 'A terrible beauty is born', conjures up something both magnificent and terrifying, and Yeats does not attempt to resolve his ambivalence fully.

Terence Brown, the critic, believes that the poem has a magical aspect deliberately created by Yeats. He suggests that the poem is a ‘numerological artefact’, based on the date when the rising began: 24 April 1916. There are four movements or sections, with the following numbers of lines in each: 16, 24, 16, 24. It is suggested also that Yeats intended this to be a verse of power, a magical recitation, seen in for

example ‘I number him in the song’; ‘I write it out in a verse’. Yeats had a great interest in the occult and in numerology, so it is possible that Brown is correct. Whether he is or not, there is no doubt that the lines contain great power and assurance.

I write it out in a verse –

MacDonagh and MacBride

And Connolly and Pearse

Now and in time to be,

Wherever green is worn,

Are changed, changed utterly:

A terrible beauty is born.

For the most part, Yeats uses iambic tetrameter with an ABAB rhyme scheme with occasional use of trimester. These classic beats suit the solemn nature of his meditation and incantation.

I have met them at close of dayComing with vivid facesFrom counter or desk among greyEighteenth-century houses.

Polite meaningless words,

Being certain that they and IBut lived where motley is worn:

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Form and structure

This other man I had dreamedA drunken, vainglorious lout.

A terrible beauty is born.

Too long a sacrificeCan make a stone of the heart.

To murmur name upon name,As a mother names her child

Now and in time to be,Wherever green is worn,Are changed, changed utterly:A terrible beauty is born.

The Second Coming Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921).

This poem was finished in January 1919, after the horror of the First World War, and revolution in Russia. As the poem was not published for twenty-two months, in the Dial of November 1920, it came to be read as a reaction to the atrocities of the War of Independence in Ireland, even though it was more likely to have been a reaction to international events.

Yeats had a great interest in the occult and had also developed a theory of history that involved two thousand year cycles. He visualised these cycles as gyres, that is, cone shaped entities that inter-penetrate each other. The wider the cone becomes, the more it symbolises chaos and disintegration.

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Background

There are particularly significant moments both for individuals and in historical time when the dominant influence passes from one gyre to its contrary. ‘Twenty centuries of stony sleep’ preceded the Christian era, which is now waning and giving way to a new and antithetical era.

(The triad thesis, antithesis, synthesis is often used to describe the thought of German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, although he never used the term himself. The thesis is an intellectual proposition. The antithesis is simply the negation of the thesis, a reaction to the proposition. The synthesis solves the conflict between the thesis and antithesis by reconciling their common truths and forming a new thesis,

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starting the process over. To give a simple example: in early childhood, parents are viewed as all-wise and all-good. In adolescence, one begin to rebel and to see their faults. In adulthood, a mature understanding that encompasses both their flaws and strengths emerges.)

In Christianity, the ‘Second Coming’ refers to the prediction of the second coming of Christ; in Yeats’s occult and magical philosophy it might also refer to the second birth of the Avatar or great antithetical spirit, which Yeats and his wife felt certain would be reincarnated as their baby son, whose birth was imminent. In fact the child turned out to be a girl, and apparently the Avatar could not be a girl.

In this poem the hideous ‘rough beast’ that ‘slouches towards Bethlehem to be born’ is suggestive of the Anti-Christ, the archetypal opponent of Christ and his kingdom expected to appear before the end of the world. See, for example, the Book of Revelations (Chapter 13) , which is also known as the Apocalypse, and is full of imagery drawn from Jewish sources that depict the end of the world:

And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems upon its horns and a blasphemous name upon its heads. And the beast that I saw was like a leopard, its feet were like a bear’s, and its mouth was like a lion’s mouth. And to it the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority. One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth followed the beast with wonder. Men worshipped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worshipped the beast, saying, ‘Who is like the beast and who can fight against it?’

Stanza One. ’Things fall apart'. In his opinion, the whole world was disintegrating into a bloody, chaotic mess. Images of hunting show how the old world represented its failing - The falcon cannot hear the falconer'. The poem begins with the image of a falcon flying out of earshot of its human master. In medieval times, people would use falcons or hawks to track down animals at ground level. The bird is not supposed to keep flying in circles forever; it is eventually supposed to come back and land on the falconer’s glove. In this image, however, the falcon has gotten itself lost by flying too far away, which we can read as a reference to the collapse of Europe at the time Yeats was writing. It can also be read as a Christian image: We have lost touch with Christ, just as the falcon loses touch with the falconer as he swings into ever-increasing circles. This bird was trained to fly in circles to catch its prey. The circular imagery, with the repetitive '-ing', describes the continuous, swirling movement. Civilisation is also ‘Turning and turning in the widening gyre' as it buckles and fragments.

The tension is reflected in a list of contrasts: 'centre' and 'fall apart', 'falcon' and 'falconer', 'lack all conviction' and 'intensity', 'innocence' and 'anarchy'. The strain is too much: 'the centre cannot hold'. The verbs also graphically describe this chaotic world: Turning and turning', 'loosed', 'drowned', 'fall apart'. Humans are changing amidst the chaos: 'innocence is drowned'. Anarchy is described in terms of a great tidal wave, 'the blood-dimmed tide', which sweeps everything before it. The compound word reinforces the overwhelming nature of the flood. Yeats feels that the 'best', the leaders and thinkers, have no energy, they are indifferent and 'lack all conviction'. On the other hand, the 'worst', the cynics and fanatics, are consumed with hatred and violence, 'full of passionate intensity'. Disillusioned, Yeats thinks a new order has to be emerging. He imagines a Second Coming.

Stanza two: He repeats the word 'Surely' in a tone of both belief and fear. The Second Coming' is usually thought of as a time when Christ will return to reward the good, but the image Yeats presents us with is terrifying. A blank, pitiless creature emerges. It is straight from the Book of Revelations: 'And I saw a beast rising out of the sea'. This was regarded as a sign that the end of the world was near. Such an unnatural hybrid of human and animal is a form of the Anti-Christ, the opposite force of the gentle infant Jesus who signalled the end of the Greek and Roman Empires. The 'gaze blank' suggests its lack of intelligence. The phrase 'pitiless as the sun' tells us the creature has no empathy or compassion. It 'Slouches'. It is a brutish, graceless monstrosity. The hostile environment is a nightmare scenario of blazing desert sun, shifting sands and circling predatory birds. The verbs suggest everything is out of focus: 'Reel , 'rocking', 'Slouches'. The darkness drops again' shows how disorder, disconnectedness and the 'widening gyre' have brought us to nihilism. Unfortunately, the rise of Hitler and fascism in the 1930s proved him largely correct, and many have found the

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poem disturbingly prophetic in light of the later wars of the twentieth century. Then Yeats has a moment of epiphany: 'but now I know'. Other eras have been destroyed before. The baby in the 'rocking cradle' created an Upheaval that resulted in the end of 'twenty centuries of stony sleep'. The Christian era, with its qualities of innocence, order, maternal love and goodness, is at an end. The new era of the 'rough beast' is about to start. It is pitiless, destructive, violent and murderous. This new era has already begun: 'its hour come round at last'. It is a savage god who is coming, uninvited. The spiral has reversed its motion and is now spinning in the opposite direction. The lack of end rhyme mirrors a world of chaos.

“The Second Coming” is written in a very rough iambic pentameter, but the meter is so loose, and the exceptions so frequent, that it actually seems closer to free verse with frequent heavy stresses. The rhymes are likewise haphazard; apart from the two couplets with which the poem opens, there are only coincidental rhymes in the poem, such as “man” and “sun.”

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

The best lack all conviction, while the worstAre full of passionate intensity.

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

twenty centuries of stony sleep

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

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Key Quotes

Sailing to Byzantium (Written Autumn 1926, published in The Tower, 1928)

Writing for a radio programme in 1931, Yeats outlined some of the preoccupations of his poetry at that time, in particular the spiritual quest of ‘Sailing to Byzantium’:

Now I am trying to write about the state of my soul, for it is right for an old man to make his soul [an expression meaning to prepare for death], and some of my thoughts upon that subject I have put into a poem called ‘Sailing to Byzantium’. When Irishmen were illuminating the Book of Kells and making the jewelled crosiers of the National Museum, Byzantium was the centre of European civilisation and the source of its spiritual philosophy, so I symbolise the search for the spiritual life by a journey to that city.

The Byzantine Empire, or Eastern Roman Empire, was the predominantly Greek-speaking continuation of the eastern part of the Roman Empire. Its capital city was Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul), originally founded as Byzantium. It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 under the reign of Mehmed the Conqueror. During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in Europe. Both "Byzantine Empire" and "Eastern Roman Empire" are historiographical terms created after the end of the realm; its citizens continued to refer to their empire as the Roman Empire.

Stanza One: The main theme surfaces immediately in the first stanza. With that strong, declamatory opening he renounces the world of the senses for that of the spirit and the intellect, the timeless.

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Summary and analysis

Background

That is no country for old men. The young/In one another’s arms…

Notice the perspective (‘that’): he has already departed and is looking back, not without a little nostalgic yearning for his youth. The sensual imagery of lovers and the teeming rich life of trees and seas, the athletic vigour of the hyphenated words (‘the salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas’) and the sensual ‘f’ and ‘s’ sounds of ‘fish, flesh or fowl’ – all used to describe the cycle of life in the flesh – would strongly suggest that he does not renounce it easily. Indeed this ambiguity is carried in the paradox of ‘those dying generations’, with its linking of death and regeneration.

Stanza two: The importance of the spirit is re-emphasised in the second stanza as the poet asserts that it is the soul that gives meaning to a person: ‘An aged man is but a paltry thing… unless / Soul clap its hands and sing.’ And art enriches the soul, teaches it to sing: ‘studying / Monuments of its own magnificence,’ that is, works of art inspired by the spirit. In ‘A Vision’ (1925) Yeats wrote about the harmoniousness of life in fifth-century Byzantium: ‘I think that in early Byzantium, maybe never before or since in recorded history, religious, aesthetic and practical life were one.’ He had visited Ravenna in 1907 and when he composed the third stanza probably had in mind a mosaic on the wall of S. Apollinore Nuova showing martyrs being burned in a fire.

Stanza three: He addresses the martyrs directly. He wants them to whirl through time ('perne in a gyre') and come to teach his soul how to 'sing', how to live the life of the spirit. His soul craves this ('sick with desire'), but it is trapped in the decaying, mortal body ('fastened to a dying animal'). This is a disturbing image of old age. The soul has lost its identity': 'It knows not what it is'. He pleads to be saved from this using two interesting verbs, 'Consume' and 'gather'. Both suggest a desire to be taken away. A fire consumes what is put into it and changes the form of the substance. Yeats wants a new body. He pleads to be embraced like a child coming home: 'gather me'. But where will he go? He will journey into the cold world of art, 'the artifice of eternity-'. 'Artifice' refers to the skill of those who have created the greatest works of art, but it also means artificial, not real. Is the poet suggesting that eternity also has a flaw?

Stanza four: The fourth stanza starts confidently as Yeats declares that 'Once out of nature', he will be transformed into the ageless perfect work of art, the golden bird. This is the new body for his soul. Now he will sing to the court. But is the court listening? The word 'drowsy' suggests not. Isn't he singing about

transience, the passing of time: 'what is past, or passing, or to come'? Has this any relevance in eternity? Is there a perfect solution to the dilemma of old age? Yeats raises these questions for our consideration. He has explored this problem by contrasting the abundant life of the young with the 'tattered coat' of old age. He has shown us the golden bird of immortality- in opposition to the 'dying animal' of the decaying body.

It consists of four eight line stanzas, written in a form of ottava rima, that is, an Italian form usually used for epic poetry. Ottava rima traditionally uses the following rhyme scheme: ABABABCC. Yeats starts out with rhymes that seem to be following the traditional scheme, but then he introduces these half-rhymes instead of full rhymes. Here are some examples of full rhymes from the poem: trees/seas, song/long, neglect/intellect. Half-rhymes, on the other hand, don’t quite rhyme. Here are some examples: seas/dies, wall/soul/animal. Notice how they’ve got the same final consonants ("s" and "l"), but they have different vowel sounds. The poet has lulled us with end-rhymes and half-rhymes. He has used groups of threes - 'Fish, flesh, or fowl', 'begotten, born, and dies', 'past, or passing, or to come' - to argue his case. (Three has a magical significance, and was part of Yeats’ elaborate meaning system that he developed from various sources.)

As befits the theme of conflict, the ideas and images in this poem are developed in a series of antinomies or contrasts. At the end of the poem, do we feel that Yeats genuinely longs for the warm, teeming life of the senses with all its imperfections rather than the cold, disinterested world of the 'artifice of eternity'?

That is no country for old men.

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Key Quotes

Form and structure

Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer longWhatever is begotten, born, and dies.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder singFor every tatter in its mortal dress,

Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,And be the singing-masters of my soul.

fastened to a dying animal

Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing,

Of hammered gold and gold enamellingTo keep a drowsy Emperor awake;

Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

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Key Quotes