W. B. Yeats

“ To turn our thoughts for their own ends to frenzy.
Why do you put your finger to your lip,
And creep away?
[Fool goes out.
(Wise Man sees Angel.) What are you? Who are you?
I think I saw some like you in my dreams,
When but a child. That thing about your head,—
That brightness in your hair—that flowery branch;
But I have done with dreams, I have done with dreams.
Angel
I am the crafty one that you have called.
Wise Man
How that I called?
Angel
I am the messenger.
[141]
Wise Man
What message could you bring to one like me? ”

“ The second: 'I shall learn a trade';
The third: 'I'll hurry to the course
Among the other gentlemen,
And lay it all upon a horse';
The second: 'I have thought again:
[43] A farmer has more dignity.'
One to another sighed and cried:
The exorbitant dreams of beggary,
That idleness had borne to pride,
Sang through their teeth from noon to noon;
And when the second twilight brought
The frenzy of the beggars' moon
They closed their blood-shot eyes for naught.
One beggar cried: 'You're shamming sleep.'
And thereupon their anger grew
Till they were whirling in a heap. ”

“ In Ireland I am constantly reminded of that fable of the futility of all discipline that is not of the whole being. Religious Ireland—and the pious Protestants of my childhood were signal examples—thinks of divine things as a round of duties separated from life and not as an [187] element that may be discovered in all circumstance and emotion, while political Ireland sees the good citizen but as a man who holds to certain opinions and not as a man of good will. Against all this we have but a few educated men and the remnants of an old traditional culture among the poor. ”

“ When one is so quiet that there is not a thought in one's head maybe, there is something that wakes up inside one, something happy and quiet, and then all in a minute one can smell summer flowers, and tall people go by, happy and laughing, but they will not let us look at their faces. ”

“ For some years there have been those—and prominent critics, too—who have quite emphatically maintained that there is no greater American poet than Mr. Neihardt, that in him are found those essentials which make for true art—a feeling for words, a lyric power of the first quality, an understanding of rhythm. ”

“ My pupils said that they would find a man
Whose faith I never shook—they may have found him.
Therefore I will go out—but if I go,
The glass will let the sands run out unseen.
I cannot go—I cannot leave the glass.
Go call my pupils—I can explain all now,
Only when all our hold on life is troubled,
[166] Only in spiritual terror can the Truth
Come through the broken mind—as the pease burst
Out of a broken pease-cod. ”

“ Oh, Teigue tells one tale here, another there, and everybody gives him pennies. If Teigue had not his tales he would starve.
[He breaks away and goes out.
Wise Man
The last hope is gone,
And now that it's too late I see it all,
We perish into God and sink away
Into reality—the rest's a dream.
[The Fool comes back.
Fool
There was one there—there by the threshold stone, waiting there; and he said, 'Go in, Teigue, and tell him everything that he asks you. He will give you a penny if you tell him.'
[178]
Wise Man
I know enough, that know God's will prevails. ”

“ I was faintly pleased when I converted a music-hall singer and kept him going to Mass for six weeks, so little responsibility does one feel for those to whom one has never been introduced; but I was always ashamed when I saw any friend of my own in the theatre. Now I have made my philosopher accept God's will, whatever it is, and find his courage again, and helped by the elaboration of verse, have so changed the fable that it is not false to my own thoughts of the world. ”

“ The fable for this poem came into my head while I was giving some lectures in Dublin. I had noticed once again how all thought among us is frozen into 'something other than human life.' After I had made the poem, I looked up one day into the blue of the sky, and suddenly imagined, as if lost in the blue of the sky, stiff [188] figures in procession. I remembered that they were the habitual image suggested by blue sky, and looking for a second fable called them 'The Magi', complimentary forms to those enraged dolls. ”

“ Oh no, it is not right that we should look at their faces.
[137]
Wise Man
You have fallen asleep upon a hill, yet, even those that used to dream of angels dream now of other things.
Fool
I saw one but a moment ago—that is because I am lucky. It was coming behind me, but it was not laughing.
Wise Man
There's nothing but what men can see when they are awake. Nothing, nothing. ”

“ Do you believe in God and in the soul?
Fool
So you ask me now. I thought when you were asking your pupils, 'Will he ask Teigue the Fool? Yes, he will, he will; no, he will not—yes, he will.' But Teigue will say nothing. Teigue will say nothing.
Wise Man
Tell me quickly.
Fool
I said, 'Teigue knows everything, not [175] even the green-eyed cats and the hares that milk the cows have Teigue's wisdom'; but Teigue will not speak, he says nothing. ”

“ A friend suggested to me the subject of this play, an Irish folk-tale from Lady Wilde's Ancient Legends. I have for years struggled with something which is charming in the naive legend but a platitude on the stage. I did not discover till a year ago that if the wise man humbled himself to the fool and received salvation as his reward, so much more powerful are pictures than words, no explanatory dialogue could set the matter right. ”

“ 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.
[102]
THE COMING OF WISDOM WITH TIME
Though leaves are many, the root is one ”

“ Fool
That's foolish advice for a wise man to give.
[132]
Wise Man
Why, Fool?
Fool
What is eaten is gone—I want pennies for my bag. I must buy bacon in the shops, and nuts in the market, and strong drink for the time the sun is weak, and snares to catch the rabbits and the hares, and a big pot to cook them in.
Wise Man
I have more to think about than giving pennies to your like, so run away.
Fool
Give me a penny and I will bring you luck. The fishermen let me sleep among their nets in the loft because I bring them luck ”

“ Or thoughts like these, and we have not forgot.
Wise Man
Something incredible has happened—some one has come
[156] Suddenly like a grey hawk out of the air,
And all that I declared untrue is true.
First Pupil (to other pupils)
You'd think the way he says it, that he felt it.
There's not a mummer to compare with him.
He's something like a man.
Second Pupil
Give us some proof.
Wise Man
What proof have I to give, but that an angel
An instant ago was standing on that spot.
[The pupils rise.
Third Pupil
You dreamed it.
[157]
Wise Man
I was awake as I am now. ”

“ Robinson Jeffers is a new poet, a man whose name is as yet unknown but whose work is of such outstanding character that once it is read he is sure of acceptance by those who have admired the writings of such men as John G. Neihardt, Edgar Lee Masters, Edwin Arlington Robinson and Thomas Walsh. Virtually all of the poems in this first collection have their setting in California, most of them in the Monterey peninsula, and they realize the scenery of the great State with vividness and richness of detail. The author's main source of inspiration has been the varying aspects of nature. ”

“ Ledoux has constructed such a play as might well have held the attention of the assembled mystæ at Eleusis. It is Greek. Better than this, it is also human. Its beauty and its truthfulness to life will appeal alike to the lover of classical and the lover of modern dramatic poetry. ”

“ We have chosen the passage for the lesson, Master. 'There are two [124] living countries, one visible and one invisible, and when it is summer there, it is winter here, and when it is November with us, it is lambing-time there.'
Wise Man
That passage, that passage! what mischief has there been since yesterday?
First Pupil
None, Master.
Wise Man
Oh yes, there has; some craziness has fallen from the wind, or risen from the graves of old men, and made you choose that subject. ”

“ Fool
You will be very lucky if you give me two pennies, but I won't tell you.
Wise Man
Three pennies?
Fool
Four, and I will tell you.
Wise Man
Very well—four, but from this out I will not call you Teigue the Fool.
Fool
Let me come close to you, where nobody will hear me; but first you must promise not to drive them away. (Wise Man nods.) Every day men go out dressed in black and spread great black nets over the hills, great black nets.
[135]
Wise Man
A strange place that to fish in.
Fool
They spread them out on the hills that they may catch the feet of the angels ”

“ There were reasons to justify a man's joining either party, but there were none to justify, on one side or on the other, lying accusations forgetful of past service, a frenzy of detraction. And another was the dispute over 'The Playboy.' There were reasons for opposing as for supporting that violent, laughing thing, [184] but none for the lies, for the unscrupulous rhetoric spread against it in Ireland, and from Ireland to America. The third prepared for the Corporation's refusal of a building for Sir Hugh Lane's famous collection of pictures. ”

“ Goethe in Wilhelm Meister describes a saintly and naturally gracious woman, who getting into a quarrel over some trumpery detail of religious observance, grows—she and all her little religious community—angry and vindictive. ”

“ Some of his pupils come in at the other side of the stage.
First Pupil
Master, master, you must choose the subject.
[Enter other pupils with Fool, about whom they dance; all the pupils may have little cushions on which presently they seat themselves.
[148]
Second Pupil
Here is a subject—where have the Fool's wits gone? (singing)
'Who dragged your wits away
Where no one knows?
Or have they run off
On their own pair of shoes?'
Fool
Give me a penny.
First Pupil
The Master will find your wits,
Second Pupil
And when they are found, you must not beg for pennies. ”

“ There's a crowd of people talking to your pupils.
Wise Man
Go out and find if they have found a man
Who did not understand me when I taught,
Or did not listen.
Bridget
It is a hard thing to be married to a man of learning that must always be having arguments. ”

“ Aye, to some frenzy of the mind,
For all that we have done's undone,
Our speculation but as the wind.
[He dies.
Fool
Wise man—Wise man, wake up and I will tell you everything for a penny. It is I, poor Teigue the Fool. Why don't you wake up, and say, 'There is a penny for you, Teigue'? No, no, you will say nothing. You and I, we are the two fools, we know everything, but we will not speak.
[Angel enters holding a casket.
O, look what has come from his mouth! O, look what has come from his mouth—the white butterfly! He [180] is dead, and I have taken his soul in my hands ”

“ I am looped in the loops of her hair.
Oh, love is the crooked thing,
There is nobody wise enough
To find out all that is in it,
For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away,
[116] And the shadows eaten the moon.
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
One cannot begin it too soon.
[117]
THE HOUR-GLASS
NEW VERSION—1912
[118]
[119]
THE HOUR-GLASS THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY
Wise Man.
Bridget, his wife.
Teigue, a fool.
Angel.
Children and Pupils.
Pupils come in and stand before the stage curtain, which is still closed. One pupil carries a book. ”

“ The first serious opposition began in the Irish Catholic, the chief Dublin clerical paper, and Mr. William Murphy, the organiser of the recent lock-out and Mr. Healy's financial supporter in his attack upon Parnell, a man of great influence, brought to its support a few days later his newspapers The Evening Herald and The Irish Independent, the most popular of Irish daily papers. He replied to my poem 'To a Wealthy Man' (I was thinking of a very different wealthy man) from what he described as 'Paudeen's point of view,' and 'Paudeen's point of view' it was. ”

“ It tells of the difficulty in which two simple Irish folk find themselves when they enter into an agreement with an apparition of the sea, who demands that they knock off his head and who maintains that after they have done that he will knock off theirs. There is a real meaning in the play which it will not take the thoughtful reader long to discover. Besides this there are a number of shorter poems, notably one in which Mr. Yeats answers the critics of "The Playboy of the Western World." ”

“ Both were stronger forty years ago, before the rise of our new middle class which showed as its first public event, during the nine years of the Parnellite split, how base at moments of excitement are minds without culture. 1914.
'Romantic Ireland's dead and gone' sounds old-fashioned now. It seemed true in 1913, but I did not foresee 1916. The late Dublin Rebellion, whatever one can say of its wisdom, will long be remembered for its heroism. ”

“ The enthusiasm for 'Sir Hugh Lane's Corots'—one paper spelled the name repeatedly 'Crot'—being but 'an exotic fashion,' waited 'some satirist like Gilbert' who 'killed the æsthetic craze,' and as for the rest 'there were no greater humbugs in the world than art critics and so-called experts.' As the first avowed reason for opposition, the necessities of the poor got [186] but a few lines, not so many certainly as the objection of various persons to supply Sir Hugh Lane with 'a monument at the city's expense,' and as the gallery was supported by Mr. ”

“ It should be played by a man if a man can be found with the right voice, and may wear a little golden domino and a halo made of metal. Or the whole face may be a beautiful mask, in which case the last sentence on page 136 should not be spoken. ”

“ BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Reveries Over Childhood and Youth
$2.00
In this book the celebrated Irish author gives us his reminiscences of his childhood and youth. The memories are written, as is to be expected, in charming prose. They have the appeal invariably attached to the account of a sensitive childhood. ”