Two Books of Poetry E-Book

William Butler Yeats

• Herausgeber: Seltzer Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 92

Beschreibung

This file includes: "Green Helmet and Other Poems" (first published in 1911) and In the Seven Woods: being poems chiefly of the Irish heroic age" (first published in 1903). The active table of contents has links to each poem. The verse plays "The Green Helmet, a Heroic Farce" and "On Baile's Strand" are included in those collections. According to Wikipedia: "William Butler Yeats (13 June 1865 - 28 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years Yeats served as an Irish Senator for two terms. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival, and along with Lady Gregory and Edward Martyn founded the Abbey Theatre, serving as its chief during its early years. In 1923, he was awarded a Nobel Prize in Literature for what the Nobel Committee described as "inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation." He was the first Irishman so honored. Yeats is generally considered one of the few writers whose greatest works were completed after being awarded the Nobel Prize; such works include The Tower (1928) and The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1929). Yeats was born and educated in Dublin, but spent his childhood in County Sligo. He studied poetry in his youth, and from an early age was fascinated by both Irish legends and the occult. Those topics feature in the first phase of his work, which lasted roughly until the turn of the century. His earliest volume of verse was published in 1889, and those slowly paced and lyrical poems display debts to Edmund Spenser and Percy Bysshe Shelley, as well as to the lyricism of the Pre-Raphaelite poets. From 1900, Yeats' poetry grew more physical and realistic. He largely renounced the transcendental beliefs of his youth, though he remained preoccupied with physical and spiritual masks, as well as with cyclical theories of life."

Leseprobe

Two Books of Poetry by Yeats

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Green Helmet and Other Poems

His Dream

A Woman Homer Sung

That the Night Come

Consolation

Friends

No Second Troy

Reconciliation

King and No King

The Cold Heaven

Peace

Against Unworthy Peace

The Fascination of What's Difficult

A Drinking Song

The Coming of Wisdom with Time

On Hearing that the Students of Our New University...

To a Poet Who Would Have Me Praise Certain Bad Poets

The Attack on the "Play Boy"

A Lyric from an Unpublished Play

Upon a House Shaken by the Land Agitation

At the Abbey Theater

These Are the Clouds

At Galway Races

A Friend's Illness

All Things Can Tempt Me

The Young Man's Song

The Green Helmet, a Heroic Farce

In the Seven Woods, being poems chiefly of the Irish heroic age

In the Seven Woods

The Old Age of Queen Maeve

Baile and Aillinin

The Arrow

The Folly of Being Comforted

The Withering of the Boughs

Adam's Curse

The Song of Red Hanrahan

The Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water

Under the Moon

The Players Ask for a Blessing...

The Rider from the North (from the play The Country of the Young)

On Baile's Strand, a play

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THE GREEN HELMET AND OTHER POEMS

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

           NEW YORK

     THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

  LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.

             1912

     _All rights reserved_

  Copyright, 1911, by

  WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

  Copyright, 1912, by

  THE MACMILLAN CO.

  _Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1912_

      THE GREEN HELMET AND

          OTHER POEMS

HIS DREAM

  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,

  Because it had such dignity

  By the sweet name of Death.

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.

  Whereon I wrote and wrought,

  And now, being gray,

  I dream that I have brought

  To such a pitch my thought

  That coming time can say,

  "He shadowed in a glass

  What thing her body was."

  For she had fiery blood

  When I was young,

  And trod so sweetly proud

  As 'twere upon a cloud,

  A woman Homer sung,

  That life and letters seem

  But an heroic dream.

THAT THE NIGHT COME

  She lived in storm and strife.

  Her soul had such desire

  For what proud death may bring

  That it could not endure

  The common good of life,

  But lived as 'twere a king

  That packed his marriage day

  With banneret and pennon,

  Trumpet and kettledrum,

  And the outrageous cannon,

  To bundle Time away

  That the night come.

THE CONSOLATION

  I had this thought awhile ago,

  "My darling cannot understand

  What I have done, or what would do

  In this blind bitter land."

  And I grew weary of the sun

  Until my thoughts cleared up again,

  Remembering that the best I have done

  Was done to make it plain;

  That every year I have cried, "At length

  My darling understands it all,

  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.

FRIENDS

  Now must I these three praise--

  Three women that have wrought

  What joy is in my days;

  One that no passing thought,

  Nor those unpassing cares,

  No, not in these fifteen

  Many times troubled years,

  Could ever come between

  Heart and delighted heart;

  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.

  And what of her that took

  All till my youth was gone

  With scarce a pitying look?

  How should I praise that one?

  When day begins to break

  I count my good and bad,

  Being wakeful for her sake,

  Remembering what she had,

  What eagle look still shows,

  While up from my heart's root

  So great a sweetness flows

  I shake from head to foot.

NO SECOND TROY

  Why should I blame her 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?

RECONCILIATION

  Some may have blamed you that you took away

  The verses that could move them on the day

  When, the ears being deafened, the sight of the eyes blind

  With lightning you went from me, and I could find

  Nothing to make a song about but kings,

  Helmets, and swords, and half-forgotten things

  That were like memories of you--but now

  We'll out, for the world lives as long ago;

  And while we're in our laughing, weeping fit,

  Hurl helmets, crowns, and swords into the pit.

  But, dear, cling close to me; since you were gone,

  My barren thoughts have chilled me to the bone.

KING AND NO KING

  "Would it were anything but merely voice!"

  The No King cried who after that was King,

  Because he had not heard of anything

  That balanced with a word is more than noise;

  Yet Old Romance being kind, let him prevail

  Somewhere or somehow that I have forgot,

  Though he'd but cannon--Whereas we that had thought

  To have lit upon as clean and sweet a tale

  Have been defeated by that pledge you gave

  In momentary anger long ago;

  And I that have not your faith, how shall I know

  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.

THE COLD HEAVEN

  Suddenly I saw the cold and rook delighting Heaven

  That seemed as though ice burned and was but the more ice,

  And thereupon imagination and heart were driven

  So wild, that every casual thought of that and this

  Vanished, and left but memories, that should be out of season

  With the hot blood of youth, of love crossed long ago;

  And I took all the blame out of all sense and reason,

  Until I cried and trembled and rocked to and fro,

  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?

PEACE

  Ah, that Time could touch a form

  That could show what Homer's age

  Bred to be a hero's wage.

  "Were not all her life but storm,

  Would not painters paint a form

  Of such noble lines" I said.

  "Such a delicate high head,

  So much sternness and such charm,

  Till they had changed us to like strength?"

  Ah, but peace that comes at length,

  Came when Time had touched her form.

AGAINST UNWORTHY PRAISE

  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.

  What, still you would have their praise!

  But here's a haughtier text,

  The labyrinth of her days

  That her own strangeness perplexed;

  And how what her dreaming gave

  Earned slander, ingratitude,

  From self-same dolt and knave;

  Aye, and worse wrong than these.

  Yet she, singing upon her road,

  Half lion, half child, is at peace.

THE FASCINATION OF WHAT'S DIFFICULT

  The 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 colt

  That must, as if it had not holy blood,

  Nor on an Olympus 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.

A DRINKING SONG

  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.

THE COMING OF WISDOM WITH TIME

  Though leaves are many, the root is one;

  Through all the lying days of my youth

  I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;

  Now I may wither into the truth.

ON HEARING THAT THE STUDENTS OF OUR NEW UNIVERSITY HAVE JOINED THE ANCIENT ORDER OF HIBERNIANS AND THE AGITATION AGAINST IMMORAL LITERATURE

  Where, where but here have Pride and Truth,

  That long to give themselves for wage,

  To shake their wicked sides at youth

  Restraining reckless middle-age.

TO A POET, WHO WOULD HAVE ME PRAISE CERTAIN BAD POETS, IMITATORS OF HIS AND MINE

  You say, as I have often given tongue

  In praise of what another's said or sung,

  'Twere politic to do the like by these;

  But where's the wild dog that has praised his fleas?

THE ATTACK ON THE "PLAY BOY"

  Once, when midnight smote the air,

  Eunuchs ran through Hell and met

  Round about Hell's gate, to stare