Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
A Selection from the Love Poetry of William Butler Yeats (Author: William Butler Yeats)

poem 4

The Green Helmet 1904–1911

The mask

  1. '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.'
  2. '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.'
  3. '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

  1. I swayed upon the gaudy stern
    The butt end of a steering oar,
    And everywhere that I could turn
    Men ran upon the shore.

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  3. 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?'
  4. And fishes bubbling to the brim
    Cried out upon that thing beneath,
    It had such dignity of limb,
    By the sweet name of Death.
  5. 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,
  6. 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

  1. 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.

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  3. 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.'
  4. 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

  1. 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

  1. I had this thought awhile ago,
    'My darling cannot understand
    What I have done, or what would do
    In this blind bitter land.'
  2. 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;
  3. 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.'
  4. 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

  1. 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

  1. 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

  1. '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 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.

Against unworthy praise

  1. 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.
  2. What, still you would have their praise!
    But here's a haughtier text,

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    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.