I said, 'It's certain there is no fine thing Since Adam's fall but needs much labouring. There have been lovers who thought love should be So much compounded of high courtesy
25 That they would sigh and quote with learned looks Precedents out of beautiful old books; Yet now it seems an idle trade enough.'
We sat grown quiet at the name of love; We saw the last embers of daylight die,
30 And in the trembling blue-green of the sky A moon, worn as if it had been a shell Washed by time's waters as they rose and fell About the stars and broke in days and years.
I had a thought for no one's but your ears:
35 That you were beautiful, and that I strove To love you in the old high way of love; That it had all seemed happy, and yet we'd grown As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.
Nov. 1902 1902, 1922
1. When Adam was evicted from the Garden of 2. The two women in the poem are modeled on Eden, God cursed him with a life of toil and labor Maud Gonne and her sister, Kathleen Pilcher (Genesis 3.17-19). (1868- 1919).
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A COA T / 202 9 No Second Troy 510Why should I blame her1 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?2 Dec. 1908 1910 The Fascination of What's Difficult1 510The 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 colt2 That must, as if it had not holy blood Nor on Olympus3 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. Sept. 1909?Mar. 1910 1910 A Coat I made my song a coat Covered with embroideries Out of old mythologies From heel to throat;
1. Maud Gonne, whose revolutionary activities are at issue in the poem. 2. Helen of Troy was the legendary cause of the Trojan War and thus of Troy's destruction. 1. Written when Yeats was director-manager of the Abbey Theatre. 'Subject. To complain of the fascination of what's difficult. It spoils spontaneity and pleasure, and wastes time. Repeat the line ending difficult three times and rhyme on bolt, exalt, colt, jolt' [Yeats's diary for September 1909].
2. Pegasus, in Greek mythology a winged horse associated with poetry. 3. A mountain in Greece; the home of the gods.
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203 0 / WILLIA M BUTLE R YEATS 510 But the fools caught it, Wore it in the world's eyes As though they'd wrought it. Song, let them take it, For there's more enterprise In walking naked. 1912 1914 September 1913 5What need you,1 being come to sense, But fumble in a greasy till0And add the halfpence to the pence And prayer to shivering prayer, until You have dried the marrow from the bone; For men were born to pray and save: Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, It's with O'Leary2 in the grave. cash register 1015Yet they were of a different kind, The names that stilled your childish play, They have gone about the world like wind, But little time had they to pray For whom the hangman's rope was spun, And what, God help us, could they save? Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, It's with O'Leary in the grave. 20Was it for this the wild geese3 spread The grey wing upon every tide; For this that all that blood was shed, For this Edward Fitzgerald died, And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone,4 All that delirium of the brave? Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, It's with O'Leary in the grave. 25 Yet could we turn the years again, And call those exiles as they were
1. Members of the new, largely Roman Catholic middle class. When the art dealer Hugh Lane (d. 1915) offered to give his collection of French impressionist paintings to the city of Dublin, provided they were permanently housed in a suitable gallery, Yeats became angry over fierce public opposition to funding the project. 2. John O'Leary (1830-1907), Irish nationalist, who, after five years' imprisonment and fifteen years' exile, returned to Dublin in 1885; he rallied the young Yeats to the cause of literary nationalism. 3. Popular name for the Irish who, because of the penal laws against Catholics (1695?1727), were forced to flee to the Continent.
4. Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763-1798), one of the chief founders of the United Irishmen (an Irish nationalist organization) and leader of the 1798 Irish Rising, committed suicide in prison. Lord Edward Fitzgerald (1763-1798), British officer who, after being dismissed from the army for disloyal activities, joined the United Irishmen, helped lead the 1 798 Irish Rising, and died in prison. Robert Emmet (1778-1803), a leader of the abortive 1803 Irish Nationalist Revolt, was hanged for treason.
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EASTER, 1916 / 2031
In all their loneliness and pain, You'd cry, 'Some woman's yellow hair Has maddened every mother's son':
30 They weighed so lightly what they gave. But let them be, they're dead and gone, They're with O'Leary in the grave.
Sept. 1913 1913
Easter, 1916'
I have met them at close of day Coming with vivid faces From counter or desk among grey Eighteenth- century houses.
5 I have passed with a nod of the head Or polite meaningless words, Or have lingered awhile and said Polite meaningless words, And thought before I had done
10 Of a mocking tale or a gibe To please a companion Around the fire at the club, Being certain that they and I But lived where motley2 is worn:
15 All changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.
