Seven Poems and a Fragment
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ALL SOULS’ NIGHT
’Tis All Souls’ Night and the great Christ Church bell,And many a lesser bell, sound through the room,For it is now midnight;And two long glasses brimmed with muscatelBubble upon the table. A ghost may come,For it is a ghost’s right,His element is so fineBeing sharpened by his death,To drink from the wine-breathWhile our gross palates drink from the whole wine.I need some mind that, if the cannon soundFrom every quarter of the world, can stayWound in mind’s pondering,As mummies in the mummy-cloth are wound;Because I have a marvellous thing to say,A certain marvellous thingNone but the living mock,Though not for sober ear;It may be all that hearShould laugh and weep an hour upon the clock.H – ’s the first I call. He loved strange thoughtAnd knew that sweet extremity of prideThat’s called platonic love,And that to such a pitch of passion wroughtNothing could bring him, when his lady died,Anodyne for his love.Words were but wasted breath;One dear hope had he:The inclemencyOf that or the next winter would be death.Two thoughts were so mixed up I could not tellWhether of her or God he thought the most,But think that his mind’s eye,When upward turned, on one sole image fell,And that a slight companionable ghost,Wild with divinity,Had so lit up the wholeImmense miraculous house,The Bible promised us,It seemed a gold-fish swimming in a bowl.On Florence Emery I call the next,Who finding the first wrinkles on a faceAdmired and beautiful,And knowing that the future would be vexedWith ’minished beauty, multiplied commonplace,Preferred to teach a school,Away from neighbour or friendAmong dark skins, and therePermit foul years to wearHidden from eyesight to the unnoticed end.Before that end much had she ravelled outFrom a discourse in figurative speechBy some learned IndianOn the soul’s journey. How it is whirled about,Wherever the orbit of the moon can reach,Until it plunged into the sun;And there free and yet fast,Being both Chance and Choice,Forget its broken toysAnd sink into its own delight at last.And I call up MacGregor from the grave,For in my first hard springtime we were friends,Although of late estranged.I thought him half a lunatic, half knave,And told him so, but friendship never ends;And what if mind seem changed,And it seem changed with the mind,When thoughts rise up unbidOn generous things that he didAnd I grow half contented to be blind.He had much industry at setting out,Much boisterous courage, before lonelinessHad driven him crazed;For meditations upon unknown thoughtMake human intercourse grow less and less;They are neither paid nor praised.But he’d object to the host,The glass because my glass;A ghost-lover he wasAnd may have grown more arrogant being a ghost.But names are nothing. What matter who it be,So that his elements have grown so fineThe fume of muscatelCan give his sharpened palate ecstasyNo living man can drink from the whole wine.I have mummy truths to tellWhereat the living mock,Though not for sober ear,For maybe all that hearShould laugh and weep an hour upon the clock.Such thought – such thought have I that hold it tightTill meditation master all its parts,Nothing can stay my glanceUntil that glance run in the world’s despiteTo where the damned have howled away their hearts,And where the blessed dance;Such thought, that in it boundI need no other thingWound in mind’s wandering,As mummies in the mummy-cloth are wound.SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF A BLACK CENTAUR
Your hooves have stamped at the black margin of the wood,Even where the horrible green parrots call and swing.My works are all stamped down into the sultry mud.I knew that horse play, knew it for a murderous thing.What wholesome sun has ripened is wholesome food to eatAnd that alone, yet I being driven half insaneBecause of some green wing, gathered old mummy wheatIn the mad abstract dark and ground it grain by grainAnd after baked it slowly in an oven; but nowI bring full flavoured wine out of a barrel foundWhere seven Ephesian topers slept and never knewWhen Alexander’s empire past, they slept so sound.Stretch out your limbs and sleep a long Saturnian sleep;I have loved you better than my soul for all my words,And there is none so fit to keep a watch and keepUnwearied eyes upon those horrible green birds.THOUGHTS UPON THE PRESENT STATE OF THE WORLD
IMany ingenious lovely things are goneThat seemed sheer miracle to the multitude;Above the murderous treachery of the moonOr all that wayward ebb and flow. There stoodAmid the ornamental bronze and stoneAn ancient image made of olive wood;And gone are Phidias’ carven ivoriesAnd all his golden grasshoppers and bees.We too had many pretty toys when young;A law indifferent to blame or praiseTo bribe or threat; habits that made old wrongMelt down, as it were wax in the sun’s rays;Public opinion ripening for so longWe thought it would outlive all future days.O what fine thought we had because we thoughtThat the worst rogues and rascals had died out.All teeth were drawn, all ancient tricks unlearned,And a great army but a showy thing;What matter that no cannon had been turnedInto a ploughshare; parliament and kingThought that unless a little powder burnedThe trumpeters might burst with trumpetingAnd yet it lack all glory; and perchanceThe guardsmen’s drowsy chargers would not prance.Now days are dragon-ridden, the nightmareRides upon sleep: a drunken soldieryCan leave the mother, murdered at her door,To crawl in her own blood, and go scot-free;The night can sweat with terror as beforeWe pieced our thoughts into philosophy,And planned to bring the world under a ruleWho are but weasels fighting in a hole.He who can read the signs nor sink unmannedInto the half-deceit of some intoxicantFrom shallow wits, who knows no work can stand,Whether health, wealth or peace of mind were spentOn master work of intellect or hand,No honour leave its mighty monument,Has but one comfort left: all triumph wouldBut break upon his ghostly solitude.And other comfort were a bitter wound:To be in love and love what vanishes.Greeks were but lovers; all that country roundNone dared admit, if such a thought were his,Incendiary or bigot could be foundTo burn that stump on the Acropolis,Or break in bits the famous ivoriesOr traffic in the grasshoppers or bees?IIWhen Loie Fuller’s Chinese dancers enwoundA shining web, a floating ribbon of cloth,It seemed that a dragon of airHad fallen among dancers, had whirled them roundOr hurried them off on its own furious path;So the platonic yearWhirls out new right and wrongWhirls in the old instead;All men are dancers and their treadGoes to the barbarous clangour of gong.IIISome moralist or mythological poetCompares the solitary soul to a swan;I am content with that,Contented that a troubled mirror show itBefore that brief gleam of its life be gone,An image of its state;The wings half spread for flight,The breast thrust out in prideWhether to play or to rideThose winds that clamour of approaching night.A man in his own secret meditationIs lost amid the labyrinth that he has madeIn art or politics;Some platonist affirms that in the stationWhere we should cast off body and tradeThe ancient habit sticks,And that if our works couldBut vanish with our breathThat were a lucky death,For triumph can but mar our solitude.The swan has leaped into the desolate heaven:That image can bring wildness, bring a rageTo end all things, to endWhat my laborious life imagined, evenThe half imagined, the half written page;O but we dreamed to mendWhatever mischief seemedTo afflict mankind, but nowThat winds of winter blowLearn that we were crack-pated when we dreamed.IVWe, who seven years agoTalked of honour and of truth,Shriek with pleasure if we showThe weasel’s twist, the weasel’s tooth.VCome let us mock at the greatThat had such burdens on the mindAnd toiled so hard and lateTo leave some monument behind,Nor thought of the levelling wind.Come let us mock at the wise;With all those calendars whereonThey fixed old aching eyes,They never saw how seasons run,And now but gape at the sun.Come let us mock at the goodThat fancied goodness might be gay,Grown tired of their solitude,Upon some brand-new happy day:Wind shrieked – and where are they?Mock mockers after thatThat would not lift a hand maybeTo help good, wise or greatTo bar that foul storm out, for weTraffic in mockery.VIViolence upon the roads: violence of horses;Some few have handsome riders, are garlandedOn delicate sensitive ear or tossing mane,But wearied running round and round in their coursesAll break and vanish, and evil gathers head:Herodias’ daughters have returned againA sudden blast of dusty wind and afterThunder of feet, tumult of images,Their purpose in the labyrinth of the wind;And should some crazy hand dare touch a daughterAll turn with amorous cries, or angry cries,According to the wind, for all are blind.But now wind drops, dust settles; thereuponThere lurches past, his great eyes without thoughtUnder the shadow of stupid straw-pale locks,That insolent fiend Robert ArtissonTo whom the love-lorn Lady Kyteler broughtBronzed peacock feathers, red combs of her cocks.THE NEW FACES
If you, that have grown old were the first deadNeither Caltapa tree nor scented limeShould hear my living feet, nor would I treadWhere we wrought that shall break the teeth of time.Let the new faces play what tricks they willIn the old rooms; night can outbalance day,Our shadows rove the garden gravel still,The living seem more shadowy than they.A PRAYER FOR MY SON
Bid a strong ghost stand at the headThat my Michael may sleep sound,Nor cry, nor turn in the bedTill his morning meal come round;And may departing twilight keepAll dread afar till morning’s backThat his mother may not lackHer fill of sleep.Bid the ghost have sword in hand:There are malicious things, althoughFew dream that they exist,Who have planned his murder, for they knowOf some most haughty deed or thoughtThat waits upon his future days,And would through hatred of the baysBring that to nought.Though You can fashion everythingFrom nothing every day, and teachThe morning stars to sing,You have lacked articulate speechTo tell Your simplest want, and known,Wailing upon a woman’s knee,All of that worst ignominyOf flesh and bone;And when through all the town there ranThe servants of Your enemyA woman and a man,Unless the Holy Writings lie,Have borne You through the smooth and roughAnd through the fertile and waste,Protecting till the danger pastWith human love.CUCHULAIN THE GIRL AND THE FOOL
THE GIRLI am jealous of the looks men turn on youFor all men love your worth; and I must rageAt my own image in the looking-glassThat’s so unlike myself that when you praise itIt is as though you praise another, or evenMock me with praise of my mere opposite;And when I wake towards morn I dread myselfFor the heart cries that what deception winsMy cruelty must keep; and so begoneIf you have seen that image and not my worth.CUCHULAINAll men have praised my strength but not my worth.THE GIRLIf you are no more strength than I am beautyI will find out some cavern in the hillsAnd live among the ancient holy men,For they at least have all men’s reverenceAnd have no need of cruelty to keepWhat no deception won.CUCHULAINI have heard them sayThat men have reverence for their holinessAnd not their worth.THE GIRLGod loves us for our worth;But what care I that long for a man’s love.THE FOOL BY THE ROADSIDEWhen my days that haveFrom cradle run to graveFrom grave to cradle run instead;When thoughts that a foolHas wound upon a spoolAre but loose thread, are but loose thread;When cradle and spool are pastAnd I mere shade at lastCoagulate of stuffTransparent like the wind,I think that I may findA faithful love, a faithful love.THE WHEEL
Through winter-time we call on spring,And through the spring on summer call,And when abounding hedges singDeclare that winter’s best of all;And after that there’s nothing goodBecause the spring-time has not come —Nor know that what disturbs our bloodIs but its longing for the tomb.A NEW END FOR ‘THE KING’S THRESHOLD’
YOUNGEST PUPILDie Seanchan and proclaim the right of the poets.SEANCHANCome nearer me, that I may know how faceDiffers from face, and touch you with my hands.O more than kin, O more than children could be,For children are but born out of our bloodAnd share our frailty. O my chicks, my chicks,That I have nourished underneath my wingsAnd fed upon my soul. (He stands up and begins to walk down steps) I need no help.He needs no help that joy has lifted upLike some miraculous beast out of Ezekiel.The man that dies has the chief part in the story,And I will mock and mock and mock that image yonderThat evil picture in the sky – no, no —I have all my strength again, I will outface it.O look upon the moon that’s standing thereIn the blue daylight – notice her complexionBecause it is the white of leprosyAnd the contagion that afflicts mankindFalls from the moon. When I and these are deadWe should be carried to some windy hillTo lie there with uncovered face awhileThat mankind and that leper there may knowDead faces laugh.(He falls and then half rises.)King, king, dead faces laugh.(He dies)OLDEST PUPILKing, king, he is dead; some strange triumphant thoughtSo filled his heart with joy that it has burstBeing grown too mighty for our frailty,And we who gaze grow like him and abhorThe moments that come between us and that deathYou promised us.KINGTake up his body.Go where you please and lay it where you please,So that I cannot see his face or anyThat cried him towards his death.YOUNGEST PUPILDead faces laugh!The ancient right is gone, the new remainsAnd that is death.(They go towards the king holding out their halters)We are impatient men,So gather up the halters in your hands.KINGDrive them away.(He goes into the palace. The soldiers block the way before the pupils.)SOLDIERHere is no place for you,For he and his pretensions now are finished.Begone before the men at arms are biddenTo hurl you from the door.OLDEST PUPILTake up his bodyAnd cry that driven from the populous doorHe seeks high waters and the mountain birdsTo claim a portion of their solitude.(They make a litter with cloak and staffs and lay Seanchan on it.)YOUNGEST PUPILAnd cry that when they took his ancient rightThey took all common sleep; therefore he claimsThe mountain for his mattress and his pillow.OLDEST PUPILAnd there he can sleep on, not noticingAlthough the world be changed from worse to worse,Amid the changeless clamour of the curlew.(They raise the litter on their shoulders and move a few steps)YOUNGEST PUPIL(motioning to them to stop)Yet make triumphant music; sing aloudFor coming times will bless what he has blessedAnd curse what he has cursed.OLDEST PUPILNo, no, be still;Or pluck a solemn music from the strings.You wrong his greatness speaking so of triumph.YOUNGEST PUPILO silver trumpets, be you lifted upAnd cry to the great race that is to come.Long-throated swans upon the waves of timeSing loudly, for beyond the wall of the worldThat race may hear our music and awake.OLDEST PUPIL(motioning the musicians to lower their trumpets)Not what it leaves behind it in the lightBut what it carries with it to the darkExalts the soul; nor song nor trumpet-blastCan call up races from the worsening worldTo mend the wrong and mar the solitudeOf the great shade we follow to the tomb.(Fedelm and the pupils go out carrying the litter. Some play a mournful music.)NOTE ON ‘THOUGHTS UPON THE PRESENT STATE OF THE WORLD’ SECTION SIX
The country people see at times certain apparitions whom they name now ‘fallen angels’ now ‘ancient inhabitants of the country,’ and describe as riding at whiles ‘with flowers upon the heads of the horses.’ I have assumed in the sixth poem that these horsemen, now that the times worsen, give way to worse. My last symbol Robert Artisson was an evil spirit much run after in Kilkenny at the start of the fourteenth century. Are not those who travel in the whirling dust also in the Platonic Year? – W. B. Y.
NOTE ON THE NEW END TO ‘THE KING’S THRESHOLD’
Upon the revival of this play at the Abbey Theatre a few weeks ago it was played with this new end. There were a few other changes. I had originally intended to end the play tragically and would have done so but for a friend who used to say ‘O do write comedy & have a few happy moments in the Theatre.’ My unhappy moments were because a tragic effect is very fragile and a wrong intonation, or even a wrong light or costume will spoil it all. However the play remained always of the nature of tragedy and so subject to vicissitude.
Here ends, ‘Seven Poems and a Fragment:’ by William Butler Yeats: with a decoration by T. Sturge Moore. Five hundred copies of this book have been printed and published by Elizabeth Corbet Yeats on paper made in Ireland, at the Cuala Press, Churchtown, Dundrum, in the County of Dublin, Ireland. Finished in the third week of April in the year nineteen hundred and twenty-two.