W B Yeats: Three Poems

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) was Irish, and is one of the great English poets. We center his poetry this month, beginning, appropriately, with love poetry.

In this month of Valentine's Day, each poem I read speaks of my love for my Jenny, and Yeats is fertile ground!

In "Words" the poet muses on his hard-won gift for poetry. He references what T. S. Eliot calls the "intolerable wrestle with words and meanings," the discipline of the poetic diction. It is a struggle, he declares, to be understood, to express the deepest meanings of the heart and mind. While fighting the battle, the poet "grew weary of the sun," until he succeeds, he thinks, in making his thoughts "plain" to his beloved - "I have come into my strength / And words obey my call." Alas, each success is also failure, but had SHE yielded to his suit:

I might have thrown poor words away
And been content to live.

 

In "The Two Trees," Yeats contrasts reality and self-perception, Time and eternity , and the eternal internal truth with the infernal internal lie. We nurture with our attention each thing that grows in our soul, and the fruit we reap follows upon that fertilizing attention. As in our podcast, The Christian Atheist, our self-reflection requires our choice and direction.

 

One of Yeats' most famous poems, "Sailing to Byzantium," written in 1926 is rich with poetic metaphor, and expresses well those years l'entre deux guerres. It is a journey well worth taking. Enjoy!

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