]> Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen An electronic edition William Butler Yeats Electronic edition compiled and proof-read by Beatrix Färber Rebecca Daly School of History, University College, Cork First draft. 1737 CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork
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 Written in 1919; first published in the Dial in September 1921. In the London Mercury (Nov 1921) it was entitled 'Thoughts upon the Present State of the World'. (A. Norman Jeffares, p. 273). Literature (a small selection) W. B. Yeats, The Autobiography of William Butler Yeats, consisting of Reveries over childhood and youth, The trembling of the veil, and Dramatis personae (New York 1938). Richard Ellmann, Yeats: The Man and the Masks. Corrected edition with a new preface (Oxford 1979). [First published New York 1948; reprinted London 1961.] Peter Allt and Russell K. Alspach, The Variorum Edition of the Poems of W.B. Yeats (New York: Macmillan 1957). W. B. Yeats, Essays and Introductions (New York: Macmillan 1961). W. B. Yeats, Explorations: selected by Mrs W. B. Yeats (London/New York: Macmillan 1962). Richard Ellmann, The Identity of Yeats (New York 1964). Toby A. Foshay, 'Yeats's 'Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen': Chronology, Chronography and Chronic Misreading', in Journal of Narrative Technique, 13.2 (Spring 1983) 100–108. A. Norman Jeffares, A New Commentary on the Poems of W. B. Yeats (Stanford 1984). David B. McWhirter, 'The Rhythm of the Body in Yeats' 'Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen'', in College Literature, 13.1 (1986) 44–54. Jefferson Holdridge, Those Mingled Seas: The Poetry of W. B. Yeats, the Beautiful and the Sublime (Dublin 2000). Rob Doggett, 'Writing out (Of) Chaos: Constructions of History in Yeats's 'Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen' and 'Meditations in Time of Civil War'', in Twentieth Century Literature, 47.2 (Summer 2001) 137–168. Helen Vendler, Our Secret Discipline: Yeats and Lyric Form (Oxford/New York 2007). Rebecca Sheehan, 'Competing with 'The Barbarous Clangour of a Gong': Why 'Theme of the Traitor and the Hero' Begins in 'Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen'', in Journal of Modern Literature 32.3 (Spring 2009) 22–38. A general bibliography is available online at the official web site of the Nobel Prize. See: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1923/yeats-bibl.html The edition used in the digital edition William Butler Yeats Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen Richard J. Finneran The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats Macmillan Press London 1991 206–210

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 1919 The poem is in English. literary poetry W. B. Yeats Irish Civil War 20c 2014-04-02 Beatrix Färber ed. File parsed and validated; SGML and HTML files created. 2014-04-01 Beatrix Färber ed. TEI header created with bibliographical detail; structural markup applied according to CELT practice. 1996 Donnchadh Ó Corráin data capture Text captured Many ingenious lovely things are gone That seemed sheer miracle to the multitude, Protected from the circle of the moon That pitches common things about. There stood Amid the ornamental bronze and stone An ancient image made of olive wood — And gone are Phidias' famous ivories And all the golden grasshoppers and bees. We too had many pretty toys when young; A law indifferent to blame or praise, To bribe or threat; habits that made old wrong Melt down, as it were wax in the sun's rays; Public opinion ripening for so long We thought it would outlive all future days. O what fine thought we had because we thought That 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 turned Into a ploughshare? Parliament and king Thought that unless a little powder burned The trumpeters might burst with trumpeting And yet it lack all glory; and perchance The guardsmen's drowsy chargers would not prance. Now days are dragon-ridden, the nightmare Rides upon sleep: a drunken soldiery Can leave the mother, murdered at her door, To crawl in her own blood, and go scot-free; The night can sweat with terror as before We pieced our thoughts into philosophy, And planned to bring the world under a rule, Who are but weasels fighting in a hole. He who can read the signs nor sink unmanned Into the half-deceit of some intoxicant From shallow wits; who knows no work can stand, Whether health, wealth or peace of mind were spent On master-work of intellect or hand, No honour leave its mighty monument, Has but one comfort left: all triumph would But break upon his ghostly solitude. But is there any comfort to be found? Man is in love and loves what vanishes, What more is there to say? That country round None dared admit, if such a thought were his, Incendiary or bigot could be found To burn that stump on the Acropolis, Or break in bits the famous ivories Or traffic in the grasshoppers or bees. When Loie Fuller's Chinese dancers enwound A shining web, a floating ribbon of cloth, It seemed that a dragon of air Had fallen among dancers, had whirled them round Or hurried them off on its own furious path; So the Platonic Year Whirls out new right and wrong, Whirls in the old instead; All men are dancers and their tread Goes to the barbarous clangour of a gong. Some moralist or mythological poet Compares the solitary soul to a swan; I am satisfied with that, Satisfied if a troubled mirror show it, Before that brief gleam of its life be gone, An image of its state; The wings half spread for flight, The breast thrust out in pride Whether to play, or to ride Those winds that clamour of approaching night. A man in his own secret meditation Is lost amid the labyrinth that he has made In art or politics; Some platonist affirms that in the station Where we should cast off body and trade The ancient habit sticks, And that if our works could But vanish with our breath That 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 rage To end all things, to end What my laborious life imagined, even The half-imagined, the half-written page; O but we dreamed to mend Whatever mischief seemed To afflict mankind, but now That winds of winter blow Learn that we were crack-pated when we dreamed. We, who seven yeats ago Talked of honour and of truth, Shriek with pleasure if we show The weasel's twist, the weasel's tooth. Come let us mock at the great That had such burdens on the mind And toiled so hard and late To leave some monument behind, Nor thought of the levelling wind. Come let us mock at the wise; With all those calendars whereon They fixed old aching eyes, They never saw how seasons run, And now but gape at the sun. Come let us mock at the good That fancied goodness might be gay, And sick of solitude Might proclaim a holiday: Wind shrieked — and where are they? Mock mockers after that That would not lift a hand maybe To help good, wise or great To bar that foul storm out, for we Traffic in mockery. Violence upon the roads: violence of horses; Some few have handsome riders, are garlanded On delicate sensitive ear or tossing mane, But wearied running round and round in their courses All break and vanish, and evil gathers head: Herodias' daughters have returned again, A sudden blast of dusty wind and after Thunder of feet, tumult of images, Their purpose in the labyrinth of the wind; And should some crazy hand dare touch a daughter All turn with amorous cries, or angry cries, According to the wind, for all are blind. But now wind drops, dust settles; thereupon There lurches past, his great eyes without thought Under the shadow of stupid straw-pale locks, That insolent fiend Robert Artisson To whom the love-lorn Lady Kyteler brought Bronzed peacock feathers, red combs of her cocks.