William Butler Yeats

“ 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, ”

“ 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. ”

“ So it's plain to be discerned
That the shades of holy men,
Who have failed being weak of will,
Pass the Door of Birth again,
And are plagued by crowds, until
They've the passion to escape.'
Moaned the other, 'They are thrown
Into some most fearful shape.'
But the second mocked his moan:
'They are not changed to anything,
Having loved God once, but maybe,
To a poet or a king
Or a witty lovely lady.'
While he'd rummaged rags and hair,
Caught and cracked his flea, the third,
Giddy with his hundredth year
Sang unnoticed like a bird. ”

“ Ah, now I know that you are Teigue the Fool. You say that I am wise, and yet I say, there are no angels.
Fool I have seen plenty of angels.
Wise Man No, no, you have not.
Fool They are plenty if you but look about you. They are like the blades of grass.
Wise Man They are plenty as the blades of grass—I heard that phrase when I was but a child and was told folly.
Fool When one gets quiet. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.
Was it for this the wild geese 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,
All that delirium of the brave; ”

“ Yet we, for all that praise, could find
Nothing but darkness overhead.
We sat as silent as a stone,
We knew, though she'd not said a word,
That even the best of love must die,
And had been savagely undone
Were it not that love upon the cry
Of a most ridiculous little bird
Tore from the clouds his marvellous moon. ”

“ And tumble out your hair
That the salt drops have wet;
Being young you have not known
The fool's triumph, nor yet
Love lost as soon as won,
Nor the best labourer dead
And all the sheaves to bind. ”

“ 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 even the green-eyed cats and the hares that milk the cows have Teigue's wisdom'; but Teigue will not speak, he says nothing. ”

“ And 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'Leary in the grave. ”

“ Do you pray?
Sometimes when you're alone in the house, do you pray?
Bridget Prayers—no, you taught me to leave them off long ago. At first I was sorry, but I am glad now, for I am sleepy in the evenings.
Wise Man Do you believe in God?
Bridget Oh, a good wife only believes in what her husband tells her.
Wise Man But sometimes, when the children are asleep
And I am in the school, do you not think
About the Martyrs and the saints and the angels,
And all the things that you believed in once? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As when I also played the fool.'
The beggar in a rage began
Upon his hunkers in the hole,
'It's plain that you are no right man
To mock at everything I love
As if it were not worth the doing. ”

“ Riddled with light. Ah! when the ghost begins to quicken,
Confusion of the death-bed over, is it sent
Out naked on the roads, as the books say, and stricken
By the injustice of the skies for punishment? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Fool That's foolish advice for a wise man to give.
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 ”

“ Is from the holy shades that rove
The grey rock and the windy light?
Why should the faithfullest heart most love
The bitter sweetness of false faces?
Why must the lasting love what passes,
Why are the gods by men betrayed!' ”

“ 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. ”

“ The pupils rise.
Third Pupil
You dreamed it.
Wise Man I was awake as I am now.
First Pupil (to the others) I may be dreaming now for all I know.
He wants to show we have no certain proof
Of anything in the world.
Second Pupil
There is this proof That shows we are awake—we have all one world
While every dreamer has a world of his own,
And sees what no one else can.
Third Pupil
Teigue sees angels. So when the Master says he has seen an angel,
He may have seen one. ”

“ TO A FRIEND WHOSE WORK HAS COME TO NOTHING
Now all the truth is out,
Be secret and take defeat
From any brazen throat,
For how can you compete,
Being honour bred, with one
Who, were it proved he lies,
Were neither shamed in his own
Nor in his neighbours' eyes? ”

“ 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. ”

“ Had given their children's children loftier thought,
Sweeter emotion, working in their veins
Like gentle blood, has been driven from the place,
And insult heaped upon him for his pains
And for his open-handedness, disgrace ”

“ Although crowds gathered once if she but showed her face,
And even old men's eyes grew dim, this hand alone,
Like some last courtier at a gypsy camping place,
Babbling of fallen majesty, records what's gone. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The palace-yard and river-side
And there to three old beggars said:
'You that have wandered far and wide
Can ravel out what's in my head.
Do men who least desire get most,
Or get the most who most desire? ”

“ And though he keep a dog and a gun,
A serving maid and a serving man:
And there the king is but as the beggar.
Poor men have grown to be rich men,
And rich men grown to be poor again,
And I am running to Paradise ”

“ Other cities have been as stupid—Samuel Butler laughs at shocked Montreal for hiding the Discobolus in a cellar—but Dublin is the capital of a nation, and an ancient race has nowhere else to look for an education. 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. In Ireland I am constantly reminded of that fable of the futility of all discipline that is not of the whole being. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Crow upon Tara.'
King Eochaid bowed his head
And thanked her for her kindness to his brother,
For that she promised, and for that refused.
Thereon the bellowing of the empounded herds
Rose round the walls, and through the bronze-ringed door
Jostled and shouted those war-wasted men,
And in the midst King Eochaid's brother stood. ”

“ These controversies, political, literary, and artistic, have showed that neither religion nor politics can of itself create minds with enough receptivity to become wise, or just and generous enough to make a nation. ”

“ For all life longs for the Last Day
And there's no man but cocks his ear
To know when Michael's trumpet cries
That flesh and bone may disappear,
And souls as if they were but sighs,
And there be nothing but God left ”

“ And one because her hand
Had strength that could unbind
What none can understand,
What none can have and thrive,
Youth's dreamy load, till she
So changed me that I live
Labouring in ecstasy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.
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; but every morning just before the dawn, I go out and cut the nets with the shears and the angels fly away. ”

“ As on the blue light of a sword, a man
Who had unnatural majesty, and eyes
Like the eyes of some great kite scouring the woods,
Stood on my path. Trembling from head to foot
I gazed at him like grouse upon a kite ”

“ 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. ”

“ For somebody might shake it, and the sand
If it were shaken might run down on the instant.
Bridget I don't understand a word you are saying. 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. ”

“ Fourth Pupil Come, Teigue, what is the old book's meaning when it says that there are sheep that drop their lambs in November?
Fool To be sure—everybody knows, everybody in the world knows, when it is Spring with us, the trees are withering there, when it is Summer with us, the snow is falling there, and have I not myself heard the lambs that are there all bleating on a cold November day—to be sure, does not everybody with an intellect know that ”

“ The Hour-Glass 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”