William Butler Yeats Responsibilities, and other poems
A COAT
I made my song a coat Covered with embroideries Out of old mythologies From heel to throat; But the fools caught it, Wore it in the world's eye As though they'd wrought it. Song, let them take it For there's more enterprise In walking naked.
[CLOSING RHYMES]
While I, from that reed-throated whisperer Who comes at need, although not now as once A clear articulation in the air But inwardly, surmise companions Beyond the fling of the dull ass's hoof, – Ben Jonson's phrase – and find when June is come At Kyle-na-no under that ancient roof A sterner conscience and a friendlier home, I can forgive even that wrong of wrongs, Those undreamt accidents that have made me – Seeing that Fame has perished this long while Being but a part of ancient ceremony — Notorious, till all my priceless things Are but a post the passing dogs defile.
FROM THE GREEN HELMET AND OTHER POEMS
HIS DREAM
I swayed upon the gaudy stern The butt end of a steering oar, And everywhere that I could turn Men ran upon the shore.
And though I would have hushed the crowd There was no mother's son but said, 'What is the figure in a shroud Upon a gaudy bed?'
And fishes bubbling to the brim Cried out upon that thing beneath, – It had such dignity of limb — By the sweet name of Death.
Though I'd my finger on my lip, What could I but take up the song? And fish and crowd and gaudy ship Cried out the whole night long,
Crying amid the glittering sea, Naming it with ecstatic breath, Because it had such dignity By the sweet name of Death.
A WOMAN HOMER SUNG
If any man drew near When I was young, I thought, 'He holds her dear,' And shook with hate and fear. But oh, 'twas bitter wrong If he could pass her by With an indifferent eye.
Whereon I wrote and wrought, And now, being grey, I dream that I have brought To such a pitch my thought That coming time can say, 'He shadowed in a glass What thing her body was.'
For she had fiery blood When I was young, And trod so sweetly proud As 'twere upon a cloud, A woman Homer sung, That life and letters seem But an heroic dream.
THE CONSOLATION
I had this thought awhile ago, 'My darling cannot understand What I have done, or what would do In this blind bitter land.'
And I grew weary of the sun Until my thoughts cleared up again, Remembering that the best I have done Was done to make it plain;
That every year I have cried, 'At length My darling understands it all, Because I have come into my strength, And words obey my call.'
That had she done so who can say What would have shaken from the sieve? I might have thrown poor words away And been content to live.
NO SECOND TROY
Why should I blame her that she filled my days With misery, or that she would of late Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways, Or hurled the little streets upon the great, Had they but courage equal to desire? What could have made her peaceful with a mind That nobleness made simple as a fire, With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind That is not natural in an age like this, Being high and solitary and most stern? Why, what could she have done being what she is? Was there another Troy for her to burn?
RECONCILIATION
Some may have blamed you that you took away The verses that could move them on the day When, the ears being deafened, the sight of the eyes blind With lightning you went from me, and I could find Nothing to make a song about but kings, Helmets, and swords, and half-forgotten things That were like memories of you – but now We'll out, for the world lives as long ago; And while we're in our laughing, weeping fit, Hurl helmets, crowns, and swords into the pit. But, dear, cling close to me; since you were gone, My barren thoughts have chilled me to the bone.
KING AND NO KING
'Would it were anything but merely voice!' The No King cried who after that was King, Because he had not heard of anything That balanced with a word is more than noise; Yet Old Romance being kind, let him prevail Somewhere or somehow that I have forgot, Though he'd but cannon – Whereas we that had thought To have lit upon as clean and sweet a tale Have been defeated by that pledge you gave In momentary anger long ago; And I that have not your faith, how shall I know That in the blinding light beyond the grave We'll find so good a thing as that we have lost? The hourly kindness, the day's common speech, The habitual content of each with each When neither soul nor body has been crossed.
PEACE
Ah, that Time could touch a form That could show what Homer's age Bred to be a hero's wage. 'Were not all her life but storm, Would not painters paint a form Of such noble lines,' I said, 'Such a delicate high head, All that sternness amid charm, All that sweetness amid strength?' Ah, but peace that comes at length, Came when Time had touched her form.
AGAINST UNWORTHY PRAISE
O heart, be at peace, because Nor knave nor dolt can break What's not for their applause, Being for a woman's sake. Enough if the work has seemed, So did she your strength renew, A dream that a lion had dreamed Till the wilderness cried aloud, A secret between you two, Between the proud and the proud.
What, still you would have their praise! But here's a haughtier text, The labyrinth of her days That her own strangeness perplexed; And how what her dreaming gave Earned slander, ingratitude, From self-same dolt and knave; Aye, and worse wrong than these, Yet she, singing upon her road, Half lion, half child, is at peace.
THE FASCINATION OF WHAT'S DIFFICULT
The fascination of what's difficult Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent Spontaneous joy and natural content Out of my heart. There's something ails our colt That must, as if it had not holy blood, Nor on an Olympus leaped from cloud to cloud, Shiver under the lash, strain, sweat and jolt As though it dragged road metal. My curse on plays That have to be set up in fifty ways, On the day's war with every knave and dolt, Theatre business, management of men. I swear before the dawn comes round again I'll find the stable and pull out the bolt.
A DRINKING SONG
Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye; That's all we shall know for truth Before we grow old and die. I lift the glass to my mouth, I look at you, and I sigh.
THE COMING OF WISDOM WITH TIME
Though leaves are many, the root is one; Through all the lying days of my youth I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun; Now I may wither into the truth.
ON HEARING THAT THE STUDENTS OF OUR NEW UNIVERSITY HAVE JOINED THE ANCIENT ORDER OF HIBERNIANS AND THE AGITATION AGAINST IMMORAL LITERATURE
Where, where but here have Pride and Truth, That long to give themselves for wage, To shake their wicked sides at youth Restraining reckless middle-age.
TO A POET, WHO WOULD HAVE ME PRAISE CERTAIN BAD POETS, IMITATORS OF HIS AND MINE
You say, as I have often given tongue In praise of what another's said or sung, 'Twere politic to do the like by these; But have you known a dog to praise his fleas?
THE MASK
'Put off that mask of burning gold With emerald eyes.' 'O no, my dear, you make so bold To find if hearts be wild and wise, And yet not cold.'
'I would but find what's there to find, Love or deceit.' 'It was the mask engaged your mind, And after set your heart to beat, Not what's behind.'
'But lest you are my enemy, I must enquire.' 'O no, my dear, let all that be, What matter, so there is but fire In you, in me?'
UPON A HOUSE SHAKEN BY THE LAND AGITATION
How should the world be luckier if this house, Where passion and precision have been one Time out of mind, became too ruinous To breed the lidless eye that loves the sun? And the sweet laughing eagle thoughts that grow Where wings have memory of wings, and all That comes of the best knit to the best? Although Mean roof-trees were the sturdier for its fall, How should their luck run high enough to reach The gifts that govern men, and after these To gradual Time's last gift, a written speech Wrought of high laughter, loveliness and ease?
AT THE ABBEY THEATRE
(Imitated from Ronsard)
Dear Craoibhin Aoibhin, look into our case. When we are high and airy hundreds say That if we hold that flight they'll leave the place, While those same hundreds mock another day Because we have made our art of common things, So bitterly, you'd dream they longed to look All their lives through into some drift of wings. You've dandled them and fed them from the book And know them to the bone; impart to us — We'll keep the secret – a new trick to please. Is there a bridle for this Proteus That turns and changes like his draughty seas? Or is there none, most popular of men, But when they mock us that we mock again?
THESE ARE THE CLOUDS
These are the clouds about the fallen sun, The majesty that shuts his burning eye; The weak lay hand on what the strong has done, Till that be tumbled that was lifted high And discord follow upon unison, And all things at one common level lie. And therefore, friend, if your great race were run And these things came, so much the more thereby Have you made greatness your companion, Although it be for children that you sigh: These are the clouds about the fallen sun, The majesty that shuts his burning eye.
AT GALWAY RACES
There where the course is, Delight makes all of the one mind, The riders upon the galloping horses, The crowd that closes in behind: We, too, had good attendance once, Hearers and hearteners of the work; Aye, horsemen for companions, Before the merchant and the clerk Breathed on the world with timid breath. Sing on: sometime, and at some new moon, We'll learn that sleeping is not death, Hearing the whole earth change its tune, Its flesh being wild, and it again Crying aloud as the race course is, And we find hearteners among men That ride upon horses.
A FRIEND'S ILLNESS
Sickness brought me this Thought, in that scale of his: Why should I be dismayed Though flame had burned the whole World, as it were a coal, Now I have seen it weighed Against a soul?
ALL THINGS CAN TEMPT ME
All things can tempt me from this craft of verse: One time it was a woman's face, or worse — The seeming needs of my fool-driven land; Now nothing but comes readier to the hand Than this accustomed toil. When I was young, I had not given a penny for a song Did not the poet sing it with such airs That one believed he had a sword upstairs; Yet would be now, could I but have my wish, Colder and dumber and deafer than a fish.
