Y is for Yeats (my favorite poets from A to Z - volume 25)
June 13th was the 143rd birthday of the great William Butler Yeats (pronounced like "Yates"), Ireland's first Nobel Prize winner, and one of the rare poets who (one could argue) produced his best work after he won the Nobel. Yeats is the guy who said "Education is not the filling of a pail, it is the lighting of a fire," one of my favorite quotations. And being part Irish myself, I've always liked to think of him as one of my artistic forbears.
Latter Day Yeats
Here's one of the last poems he wrote, called "Under Ben Bulben." The last three lines of it would end up as his epitaph....
I
Swear by what the sages spoke
Round the Mareotic Lake
That the Witch of Atlas knew,
Spoke and set the cocks a-crow.
Swear by those horsemen, by those women
Complexion and form prove superhuman,
That pale, long-visaged company
That air in immortality
Completeness of their passions won;
Now they ride the wintry dawn
Where Ben Bulben sets the scene.
Here's the gist of what they mean.
II
Many times man lives and dies
Between his two eternities,
That of race and that of soul,
And ancient Ireland knew it all.
Whether man die in his bed
Or the rifle knocks him dead,
A brief parting from those dear
Is the worst man has to fear.
Though grave-digger's toil is long,
Sharp their spades, their muscles strong,
They but thrust their buried men
Back in the human mind again.
III
You that Mitchel's prayer have heard,
"Send war in our time, O Lord!"
Know that when all words are said
And a man is fighting mad,
Something drops from eyes long blind,
He completes his partial mind,
For an instant stands at ease,
Laughs aloud, his heart at peace.
Even the wisest man grows tense
With some sort of violence
Before he can accomplish fate,
Know his work or choose his mate.
IV
Poet and sculptor, do the work,
Nor let the modish painter shirk
What his great forefathers did,
Bring the soul of man to God,
Make him fill the cradles right.
Measurement began our might:
Forms a stark Egyptian thought,
Forms that gentler Phidias wrought,
Michael Angelo left a proof
On the Sistine Chapel roof,
Where but half-awakened Adam
Can disturb globe-trotting Madam
Till her bowels are in heat,
Proof that there's a purpose set
Before the secret working mind:
Profane perfection of mankind.
Quattrocento put in print
On backgrounds for a God or Saint
Gardens where a soul's at ease;
Where everything that meets the eye,
Flowers and grass and cloudless sky,
Resemble forms that are or seem
When sleepers wake and yet still dream,
And when it's vanished still declare,
With only bed and bedstead there,
That heavens had opened.
Gyres run on;
When that greater dream had gone
Calvert and Wilson, Blake and Claude,
Prepared a rest for the people of God,
Palmer's phrase, but after that
Confusion fell upon our thought.
V
Irish poets, learn your trade,
Sing whatever is well made,
Scorn the sort now growing up
All out of shape from toe to top,
Their unremembering hearts and heads
Base-born products of base beds.
Sing the peasantry, and then
Hard-riding country gentlemen,
The holiness of monks, and after
Porter-drinkers' randy laughter;
Sing the lords and ladies gay
That were beaten into clay
Through seven heroic centuries;
Cast your mind on other days
That we in coming days may be
Still the indomitable Irishry.
VI
Under bare Ben Bulben's head
In Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid.
An ancestor was rector there
Long years ago, a church stands near,
By the road an ancient cross.
No marble, no conventional phrase;
On limestone quarried near the spot
By his command these words are cut:
Cast a cold eye
On life, on death.
Horseman, pass by!
For the Wikipedia biography of W.B. Yeats: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Butler_Yeats
To read more Yeats in the Crisis Chronicles Online Library, click here:
http://library.crisischronicles.com/categories/Yeats (William Butler).aspx
Categories: Poetry by Others, Favorite Poets from A to Z
Tags: British Poetry British Literature William Butler Yeats 1919 W.B. Yeats
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12/18/2009 4:17 PM
Crisis Chronicles Online Library wrote:
1911 photo of Yeats by George Charles BeresfordThe Meditation of the Old Fishermanby William Butler Yeatsfrom Crossways (1889)You waves, though you dance by my feet like children at play, Though you glow and you glance, though you purr and you dart; In the Junes that were warmer than these are, the waves were more gay, When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart. The herring are not in the tides as they were of old; My sorrow! for many a creak gave the creel in the cart That ... -
12/18/2009 4:52 PM
Crisis Chronicles Online Library wrote:
1911 photo of Yeats by George Charles BeresfordThe Ballad of Father O'Hartby William Butler Yeatsfrom Crossways (1889) Good Father John O'HartIn penal days rode outTo a shoneen who had free landsAnd his own snipe and trout.In trust took he John's lands;Sleiveens were all his race;And he gave them as dowers to his daughters.And they married beyond their place.But Father John went up,And Father John went down;And he wore small holes in his shoes,And he wore large holes in his gown.All loved him, only the shoneen,Whom the devils have by the hair,From the wives, and the cats, and the children,To the ...
What a nice way to start a rainy day,
reading all about William Butler Yeats.
Interesting bio and poetry. He would now
be about 143 years old yesterday. But he kept his youthful vision well into his old age. I am also Irish on my mother's side.
I like this quote:
The land of faery
Where nobody gets old and godly and grave
Where nobody gets old and crafty and wise
Where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue
or Land of Heart's Desire
Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood
But joy is wisdom. Time an endless song.
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Thank you, Elena. I neglected to mention that Yeats was also an accomplished dramatist. And especially in his early days, he was quite into mysticism. But his poetry and outlook on life seem to have become much more concrete over time.
And it looks like the rain has subsided, at least temorarily, in northern Ohio. One might say Yeats has driven it away... though I'm not sure he would choose to do so, were it up to him.
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Lots to like in this.
That stanza starting with "II" seems the gravediggers work a broth in the earth of men, death and soul.
"Even the wisest man grows tense
With some sort of violence
Before he can accomplish fate,
Know his work or choose his mate."
This makes me squirm uncomfortably - I don't know about this - I'll have to think about it. I don't know if I agree that the lightning of violence truly illuminates. Hm. I think "lightning" is a good metaphor for inspiration, for getting a glimpse of complete mind. Violence: certainly there is struggle in achieving art. But I never thought of it as violence. Pathos certainly helps, tho. Much to think about.
I like "Measurement began our might" leading up to "Profane perfection of mankind." The phrases work a kneading, a structure into the disarray of man's matter.
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I always enjoy your observations on these posts, Lady.
Yeats for me was an acquired taste. When I first read him in Ken Olcott's British Literature class at Lorain County Community College in the late eighties, I thought him somewhat haughty and was turned off by some of the occult overtones in the few poems I read. But in retrospect, I see that my initial immature assessment was quite unfair.
I have mixed feelings on his "violence." Not sure exactly how he would have defined that word... perhaps not exactly as we might. But if he's using it in a sense of the dramas, traumas, and sometimes undesirable twists of life making us capable of greater poetry, I can see that being true to some degree in my own life. So I don't know... I need to ponder this further.
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i think i need more coffee and a few rereads... i'll be back...
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I look forward to it.
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I'm with mb on that I need to do a few re-reads too.
I've never read any of Yeats... so this is fresh ground for me. If you could share a few of your impressions of the piece I'd appreciate it. I always enjoy hearing why something appeals to someone. You obviously picked this over something else you could have chosen to share.
But I will be back as well.
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Ahh... you're putting me on the spot... lol.
Since I was up past three a.m. and am just now having my first cup of coffee - in addition to expecting the grandchildren here any minute - I will have to be back as well. To answer now would require me to be briefer than your question deserves.
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W.B. Yeats is one of my favorites, and this is my favorite of his poems for sentimental reasons. This was a man who could express his love in the most perfect words. The line "But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you" chokes me up every time. I want to add some more later about the one you posted. I love Yeats.
When You Are Old
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
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Thank you, Susan!
This is another excellent Yeats poem, albeit a much earlier one. And I'm grateful you've shared it here.
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my favorite Yeats (from ArtCrimes #20)
first verse of W. B. Yeats'
The Second Coming 1919
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
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I love that... and I appreciate you sharing it. I'd forgotten it was in ArtCrimes.
For some reason I keep getting error messages when I try to visit MySpace blogs today... so I haven't seen your new one yet, though I've tried a few times.
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http://www.walkingthinice.com/2008/06/14/liars-r-us/
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Thanks, mb! Why didn't I think of that?
Too distracted by too much attempted multitasking, I suppose....
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myspace is becoming ahrder and harder to navigate and work. it takes 7-12 tries to leave a comment on some sites IF i can even get there in the first place. i've actually started playing games of solitaire while waiting to go from my own myspace home page to my blog page. i know they're supposed to be updating it, but this is ludicrous.
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MySpace sucks... but I find I get about twice as many blog views here if I post a bulletin or something of the sort on MySpace first. Plus I'd probably lose touch with half my "friends" if I totally abandoned ship. So for now the best I've been able to accomplish is to turn the chain into a leash. Still binding, but somewhat easier to break....
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Interesting that Yeats wrote his own epitaph. He obviously expected to be buried in Drumcliff Churchyard. His poetry changed in later years, as he seemed very determined to leave behind his artistic legacy. His later work is quite different from his early work, of course he was very preoccupied with his beloved Maud, who eventually married someone else. I don't remember if he ever married? But didn't he end up buried in France? Anyway, he was always one of my favorites. Have you read Purgatory? A definite way to end a cycle of violence, huh?
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I've not read his "Purgatory" yet - but I did find videos of it on You Tube:
Part One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJe2IXlJZWw
Part Two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npKzRi50uds
Part Three: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPUM6TKeDbY
Unfortunately, whoever posted the videos disabled embedding.
Yeats finally married in his fifties. He and his wife, the twenty-something George (Georgie) Hyde-Lees, had two children together.
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Thanks!
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You're welcome!
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In order to understand Yeats one must read his bio. Remember that he was from a Protestant family and we all know the problems in Ireland between Catholic and Protestant. Also he dabbled in the occult and has a lot of references to mythology.
So all this must be taken into account when you read his works. I suggest you take the time to read both the bios that JC has posted on this blog. They are really very interesting.
And furthermore I have a very close long time friend Ian Gibson who also comes from a Protestant Irish family and is now writing and living in Spain. He was first there under Franco and left after writing the Assassination of Garcia Lorca who was murdered by the fascists.
I should really write a blog about those days in Catholic Franco Spain when we were writing on the Spanish Inquisition.
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Thanks! Although I've heard you talk about those days, I would love to see you write a blog about them as well.
Somehow your mention of Spain reminds me of Yeats' Of Costello the Proud, which also mentions Spain, albeit only in passing.
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Well I've been busy reading up on Yeats this afternoon, so that I'm not such a blazing ignoramous about things, and now because you've chosen him I've had my curiosity piqued.
I had no idea he was so heavily into spirituality and mysticism his whole life and also so strongly influenced particularly by Theosophy and Spiritualist ideas. That intrigues me. Because that and his very active interest in politics I'm sure have influenced what he wrote about and the views he held.
In the article I read he was described as a symbolist poet. A term I haven't heard before. So maybe when you are more bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and have the time you can talk a little bit more about what that might mean too.
The particular poem you choose is a bit deep for me...honestly. I think I'm going to have to search out a few easier things of his to read to get a better taste of what he is all about. But thanks for choosing him... it's making me stretch...
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Interesting... when I think of symbolist poets, I always think of Arthur Rimbaud, Stephan Mallarmé, and their ilk. Yeats never really came to mind. But now that you and the article have mentioned it, I can see why that term fits W.B.
Here is a good short description of what "defines" symbolist poetry. Interesting that the article mentions poets who influenced and who were influence by symbolism, but does not list any symbolists themselves....
Chris, your comments demonstrate that you are anything but a "blazing ignoramus."
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Here's another quite different (and much shorter) poem by Yeats, entitled "Politics."
`In our time the destiny of man presents its meanings in
political terms' - Thomas Mann
HOW can I, that girl standing there,
My attention fix
On Roman or on Russian
Or on Spanish politics?
Yet here's a travelled man that knows
What he talks about,
And there's a politician
That has read and thought,
And maybe what they say is true
Of war and war's alarms,
But O that I were young again
And held her in my arms!
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I simply adore Yeats, a Golden Dawn member as were a number of period British and Irish literati...And I am also part Irish by blood, John, so hearken to Yeats as a literary forbearer as well. ~t
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