Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
A Selection from the Love Poetry of William Butler Yeats (Author: William Butler Yeats)
poem 4
The Green Helmet 19041911
The mask
- 'Put off that mask of burning gold
With emerald eyes.'
'O no, my dear, you make so bold
To find if hearts be wild and wise,
And yet not cold.'
- 'I would but find what's there to find,
Love or deceit.'
'It was the mask engaged your mind,
And after set your heart to beat,
Not what's behind.'
- 'But lest you are my enemy,
I must enquire.'
'O no, my dear, let all that be,
What matter, so there is but fire
In you, in me?'
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.
p.25
- 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, 't was bitter wrong
If he could pass her by
With an indifferent eye.
p.26
- 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 't were upon a cloud,
A woman Homer sung,
That life and letters seem
But an heroic dream.
Peace
- Ah, but Time has touched 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.
p.27
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.
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,
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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 youbut 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;
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Yet Old Romance being kind, let him prevail
Somewhere or somehow that I have forgot,
Though he'd but cannonWhereas 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.
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,
p.30
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.