The Green Helmet and Other Poems

William Butler Yeats

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  • His Dream
  • A Woman Homer Sung
  • Words
  • No Second Troy
  • Reconciliation
  • King And No King
  • Peace
  • Against Unworthy Praise
  • The Fascination Of What's Difficult
  • A Drinking Song
  • The Coming Of Wisdom With Time
  • On Hearing That The Students Of Our New University Have Joined The Agitation Against Immoral Literature
  • To A Poet, Who Would Have Me Praise Certain Bad Poets, Imitators Of His And Mine
  • The Mask
  • Upon A House Shaken By The Land Agitation
  • At The Abbey Theatre
  • These Are The Clouds
  • At Galway Races
  • A Friend's Illness
  • All Things Can Tempt Me
  • Brown Penny

  • His Dream



    I SWAYED upon the gaudy stem
    The butt-end of a steering-oar,
    And saw wherever I could turn
    A crowd upon a 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 after running at 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 running 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 O! 'twas bitter wrong
    If he could pass her by
    With an indifferent eye.

    Whereon I wrote and wrought,
    And now, being grey,
    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.






    Words



    I HAD this thought a while 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.
    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
    Men neither soul nor body has been crossed.






    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,
    All that sternness amid charm,
    All that sweetness amid 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 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 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 was there ever dog that praised his fleas?






    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?"






    Upon A House Shaken By The Land Agitation



    HOW should the world be luckier if this house,
    Where passion and precision have been one
    Time out of mind, became too ruinous
    To breed the lidleSs eye that loves the sun?
    And the sweet laughing eagle thoughts that grow
    Where wings have memory of wings, and all
    That comes of the best knit to the best? Although
    Mean roof-trees were the sturdier for its fall.
    How should their luck run high enough to reach
    The gifts that govern men, and after these
    To gradual Time's last gift, a written speech
    Wrought of high laughter, loveliness and ease?






    At The Abbey Theatre



    DEAR Craoibhin Aoibhin, look into our case.
    When we are high and airy hundreds say
    That if we hold that flight they'll leave the place,
    While those same hundreds mock another day
    Because we have made our art of common things,
    So bitterly, you'd dream they longed to look
    All their lives through into some drift of wings.
    You've dandled them and fed them from the book
    And know them to the bone; impart to us -
    We'll keep the secret - a new trick to please.
    Is there a bridle for this Proteus
    That turns and changes like his draughty seas?
    Or is there none, most popular of men,
    But when they mock us, that we mock again?






    These Are The Clouds



    THESE are the clouds about the fallen sun,
    The majesty that shuts his burning eye:
    The weak lay hand on what the strong has done,
    Till that be tumbled that was lifted high
    And discord follow upon unison,
    And all things at one common level lie.
    And therefore, friend, if your great race were run
    And these things came, So much the more thereby
    Have you made greatness your companion,
    Although it be for children that you sigh:
    These are the clouds about the fallen sun,
    The majesty that shuts his burning eye.






    At Galway Races



    THERE where the course is,
    Delight makes all of the one mind,
    The riders upon the galloping horses,
    The crowd that closes in behind:
    We, too, had good attendance once,
    Hearers and hearteners of the work;
    Aye, horsemen for companions,
    Before the merchant and the clerk
    Breathed on the world with timid breath.
    Sing on: somewhere at some new moon,
    We'll learn that sleeping is not death,
    Hearing the whole earth change its tune,
    Its flesh being wild, and it again
    Crying aloud as the racecourse is,
    And we find hearteners among men
    That ride upon horses.






    A Friend's Illness



    SICKNESS brought me this
    Thought, in that scale of his:
    Why should I be dismayed
    Though flame had burned the whole
    World, as it were a coal,
    Now I have seen it weighed
    Against a soul?






    All Things Can Tempt Me



    ALL things can tempt me from this craft of verse:
    One time it was a woman's face, or worse -
    The seeming needs of my fool-driven land;
    Now nothing but comes readier to the hand
    Than this accustomed toil. When I was young,
    I had not given a penny for a song
    Did not the poet Sing it with such airs
    That one believed he had a sword upstairs;
    Yet would be now, could I but have my wish,
    Colder and dumber and deafer than a fish.






    Brown Penny



    I WHISPERED, "I am too young,"
    And then, "I am old enough";
    Wherefore I threw a penny
    To find out if I might love.
    "Go and love, go and love, young man,
    If the lady be young and fair."
    Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
    I am looped in the loops of her hair.

    O love is the crooked thing,
    There is nobody wise enough
    To find out all that is in it,
    For he would be thinking of love
    Till the stars had run away
    And the shadows eaten the moon.
    Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
    One cannot begin it too soon.