Old yeats, “the eagle”
1999; Elsevier BV; Volume: 354; Linguagem: Inglês
10.1016/s0140-6736(99)90274-x
ISSN1474-547X
Autores Tópico(s)Irish and British Studies
ResumoRobert L Jones is a poet and freelance writer living in the Galveston Bay area of Texas, USA. He was professor of English at Radford University, Virginia, USA, from 1970 to 1982, becoming head of department in 1977. A family relocation and a grant project took him to Galveston, Texas, where he became coordinator of Academic Computer Services at Galveston College. From 1984 to 1998 he worked as a computer scientist at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, earning Group Achievement Awards from NASA and Lockheed in 1991 and the Johnson Space Center GEM Award for special achievement in 1993. His recent work is forthcoming in the US magazine Poetry. Faces change with age. They become rough and craggy, more sharply lined. But that general condition does not hide the marks of individual personality. In one well-known image of William Butler Yeats (figure), he peers askance from the page, well-dressed though just a bit untidy, head cocked slightly to the side, the clear eyes boring through round spectacles perched on the beak-like nose, out of a face showing the wear of years. It is easy to imagine why he was given the family sobriquet "the eagle".1Ellmann R The identity of Yeats.in: Oxford University Press, New York1964: 209Google Scholar The nature of that fierce bird is reflected not only in Yeats' appearance but also in his work during the last years of his life. In old age, Yeats finally discovered a name for what he had spent a lifetime doing. He was working towards "Profane perfection of mankind".2Yeats WB Under Ben Bulben.in: The collected poems of W. B. Yeats. Definitive edn. Macmillan, New York1956: 341-344Google Scholar Perhaps it is ironic that this aim should have been stated in the last poem of his volume Last Poems (1939) written after he had realised that age had reduced him personally to a scarecrow, hardly an image of perfection of any kind. Then again perhaps it is not. In 1940, the year after Yeats' death at the age of 73, T S Eliot, himself in his early 50s, delivered the first annual Yeats Lecture to the Friends of the Irish Academy at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. In that speech he praised Yeats as "pre-eminently the poet of middle age", finding in his achievement after 1919 "a great and permanent example.., of moral, as well as intellectual, excellence". But he went on to say that Yeats was "a poet who in his work remained in the best sense always young, who even in one sense became young as he aged". In Yeats' mature poems, "the interesting feelings of age are not just different feelings; they are feelings into which the feelings of youth are integrated". Eliot, as a devout churchman, had serious failures of sympathy with some of Yeats' beliefs and ideas, but not with his work. Yeats, he concluded, was "one of those few … who are a part of the consciousness of an age which cannot be understood without them".3Eliot TS Yeats.in: Unterecker J Yeats: A collection of critical essays. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ1963: 58Google ScholarEliot TS Yeats.in: Unterecker J Yeats: A collection of critical essays. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ1963: 59Google ScholarEliot TS Yeats.in: Unterecker J Yeats: A collection of critical essays. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ1963: 60Google ScholarEliot TS Yeats.in: Unterecker J Yeats: A collection of critical essays. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ1963: 63Google ScholarEliot TS On poetry and poets.1957Google Scholar This is high praise from one who may also be among those few. In passing, it is interesting to note that Eliot's best known contribution to the century may come not from his serious poems or plays, or even from his significant critical writing, but from a children's book, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, in its theatrical rebirth as the musical Cats, which itself has something to say about age. For the first 35 years of Yeats' life, no-one knew he was going to be one of the most important 20th-century poets writing in English. The most obvious reason for this lack of foresight was that those years were in the 19th century. His early poems belong to the tradition he inherited. In "Coole Park and Ballylee, 1931", Yeats includes himself, in his younger days, among "the last romantics".4Yeats WB Coole Park and Ballylee, 1931.in: The collected poems of W. B. Yeats. Definitive edn. Macmillan, New York1956: 239-240Google Scholar He never outlived the public's memory of his poetic roots. Even in old age, a poem he was often asked to read was his early "Lake Isle of Innisfree",5Yeats WB The lake isle of Innisfree.in: The collected poems of W. B. Yeats. Definitive edn. Macmillan, New York1956: 39Google Scholar which is about running off into a Faery-haunted pastoral landscape. Yeats first published the poem in 1890, when he was 25. Late in Yeats' life, Dorothy Wellesley, a friend, noted that a request for him to read that poem caused him to assume "a look of tortured irritation" that continued "until the reading was over … His later poems he was always willing to read".6Wellesley D Comments and conversations.in: Wellesley D Letters on poetry from W. B. Yeats to Dorothy Wellesley. Oxford University Press, London1964: 174Google Scholar Whatever "feelings of youth" Eliot found in Yeats' mature work did not–in Yeats' mind–include those that might belong to this poem or those like it. A case in point is Yeats' treatment of age itself. The best poems in which he speaks of age were written after his 60th birthday. That is not surprising. In his younger poems, such as "When You Are Old",7Yeats WB When you are old.in: The collected poems of W. B. Yeats. Definitive edn. Macmillan, New York1956: 40-41Google Scholar from the same period as "Innisfree", he had no idea what being old was like. The poem celebrates the present by saying that it is worth remembering after the passage of time. As an old man he learned that age was something to be dealt with. Yeats' most striking images of old age appear in poems at the beginning of The Tower (1928), placed there deliberately so that they can interact with one another. In the first poem of the volume, "Sailing to Byzantium",8Yeats WB Sailing to Byzantium.in: The collected poems of W. B. Yeats. Definitive edn. Macmillan, New York1956: 191-192Google Scholar appears the scarecrow image of an old man as "A tattered coat upon a stick" in "no country for old men". Age belongs in another place, Byzantium, the symbolic world of human intellect and artifice, where "Soul" can learn to "clap its hands and sing" by studying "Monuments of its own magnificence". When he is freed from nature, Yeats declares, he wants to take his form from the artificially perfect ones of this created place. But in the meantime, he asks in "The Tower",9Yeats WB The tower.in: The collected poems of W. B. Yeats. Definitive edn. Macmillan, New York1956: 192-197Google Scholar the next poem of the volume, in an equally vivid image: "What shall I do with this absurdity– O heart, O troubled heart–this caricature, Decrepit age that has been tied to me As to a dog's tail?" Not just Yeats, but "all old men and women" must "rage … against old age". There is, however, something to be done: "Now shall I make my soul, Compelling it to study In a learned school Till the wreck of body, Slow decay of blood, Testy delirium Or dull decrepitude, Or what worse evil come– The death of friends, or death Of every brilliant eye That made a catch in the breath– Seem but the clouds of the sky When the horizon fades, Or a bird's sleepy cry Among the deepening shades." The dreamy images of this poem's ending are like those of the early poems of The Wind Among the Reeds (1899) and The Shadowy Waters (1900). Through "study/In a learned school"–another way of saying the study of "Monuments of [the soul's] magnificence"–even the travails of ageing become as insignificant as the romantic, Pre-Raphaelite-like images of his younger poems. Making his soul is then escaping into "the artifice of eternity" created by the human mind. That may be one way of dealing with old age, and it sounds like one that other people have recommended: get interested in something, distract yourself from your physical problems, find a hobby, read, go back to school, learn arts and crafts to give yourself something to do. That, however, is not exactly what Yeats had in mind. In the remainder of this volume and the next, The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933), we see poems of remembrance—not like Wordsworth's quietly philosophical "dear remembrances" of The Recluse, which he left in manuscript at his death, but recollection of things that are still present. Yeats recalls his old images and uses them again in new ways. Here are ceremony, great dreams, old friends, passionate feelings, raving fools, Irish heroes. Here also are his 6 years as a Senator of Ireland, his work at the Abbey Theatre (which helped give a place on the stage to Irish playwrights, including Sean O'Casey and himself), his public writing and speaking about the state of Ireland and Irish politics, and the general sorry state of the world about to be at war, again. Also in The Tower Yeats places one of his most famous poems, "Among School Children" (panel).10Yeats WB Among school children.in: The collected poems of W. B. Yeats. Definitive edn. Macmillan, New York1956: 212-214Google Scholar He appears there in stanza I as "A sixty-year-old smiling public man" being given a tour of a schoolroom. He remembers a childhood sweetheart, beautiful as the mythological Leda who aroused Zeus to lustful attack in the form of a swan and then gave birth to Helen of Troy. And he sees her ideal image reflected in some ordinary child before him. The contrast with her present gaunt appearance reminds him that he, although never as beautiful as she was, also had "pretty plumage once". He is also diminished, to "a comfortable kind of old scarecrow". In stanza V, his attention turns from his view of himself to the way others see all old people. What feeble, broken old man could ever be an adequate compensation for the pain of his birth? He is worth it only in the young mother's dreams of what he will become.PanelAmong School ChildrenII walk through the long schoolroom questioning;A kind old nun in a white hood replies;The children learn to cipher and to sing,To study reading-books and history,To cut and sew, be neat in everythingIn the best modern way–the children's eyesIn momentary wonder stare uponA sixty-year-old smiling public man.III dream of a Ledaean body, bentAbove a sinking fire, a tale that sheTold of a harsh reproof, or trivial eventThat changed some childish day to tragedy–Told, and it seemed that our two natures blentInto a sphere from youthful sympathy,Or else, to alter Plato's parable,Into the yolk and white of the one shell.IIIAnd thinking of that fit of grief or rageI took upon one child or t'other thereAnd wonder if she stood so at that age–For even daughters of the swan can shareSomething of every paddler's heritage–And had that colour upon cheek or hair,And thereupon my heart is driven wild:She stands before me as a living child.IVHer present image floats into the mind–Did Quattrocento finger fashion itHollow of cheek as though it drank the windAnd took a mess of shadows for its meat?And I though never of Ledaean kindHad pretty plumage once–enough of that,Better to smile on all that smile, and showThere is a comfortable kind of old scarecrow.VWhat youthful mother, a shape upon her lapHoney of generation had betrayed,And that must sleep, shriek, struggle to escapeAs recollection or the drug decide,Would think her son, did she but see that shapeWith sixty or more winters on its head,A compensation for the pang of his birth,Or the uncertainty of his setting forth?VIPlato thought nature but a spume that playsUpon a ghostly paradigm of things;Solider Aristotle played the tawsUpon the bottom of a king of kings;World-famous golden-thighed PythagorasFingered upon a fiddle-stick or stringsWhat a star sang and careless Muses heard:Old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird.VIIBoth nuns and mothers worship images,But those the candles light are not as thoseThat animate a mother's reveries,But keep a marble or a bronze repose.And yet they too break hearts–O Presences That passion, piety or affection knows,And that all heavenly glory symbolise–O self-born mockers of man's enterprise;VIIILabour is blossoming or dancing whereThe body is not bruised to pleasure soul,Nor beauty born out of its own despair,Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,How can we know the dancer from the dance?From The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats. Definitive edition. New York: Macmillan, 1956, pages 212-14. Reprinted with permission. I I walk through the long schoolroom questioning; A kind old nun in a white hood replies; The children learn to cipher and to sing, To study reading-books and history, To cut and sew, be neat in everything In the best modern way–the children's eyes In momentary wonder stare upon A sixty-year-old smiling public man. II I dream of a Ledaean body, bent Above a sinking fire, a tale that she Told of a harsh reproof, or trivial event That changed some childish day to tragedy– Told, and it seemed that our two natures blent Into a sphere from youthful sympathy, Or else, to alter Plato's parable, Into the yolk and white of the one shell. III And thinking of that fit of grief or rage I took upon one child or t'other there And wonder if she stood so at that age– For even daughters of the swan can share Something of every paddler's heritage– And had that colour upon cheek or hair, And thereupon my heart is driven wild: She stands before me as a living child. IV Her present image floats into the mind– Did Quattrocento finger fashion it Hollow of cheek as though it drank the wind And took a mess of shadows for its meat? And I though never of Ledaean kind Had pretty plumage once–enough of that, Better to smile on all that smile, and show There is a comfortable kind of old scarecrow. V What youthful mother, a shape upon her lap Honey of generation had betrayed, And that must sleep, shriek, struggle to escape As recollection or the drug decide, Would think her son, did she but see that shape With sixty or more winters on its head, A compensation for the pang of his birth, Or the uncertainty of his setting forth? VI Plato thought nature but a spume that plays Upon a ghostly paradigm of things; Solider Aristotle played the taws Upon the bottom of a king of kings; World-famous golden-thighed Pythagoras Fingered upon a fiddle-stick or strings What a star sang and careless Muses heard: Old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird. VII Both nuns and mothers worship images, But those the candles light are not as those That animate a mother's reveries, But keep a marble or a bronze repose. And yet they too break hearts– O Presences That passion, piety or affection knows, And that all heavenly glory symbolise– O self-born mockers of man's enterprise; VIII Labour is blossoming or dancing where The body is not bruised to pleasure soul, Nor beauty born out of its own despair, Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil. O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance? From The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats. Definitive edition. New York: Macmillan, 1956, pages 212-14. Reprinted with permission. The images in human minds are always better, greater, more heroic than the realities they refer to or derive from. It is these images that we praise, that we worship, that we honour. They are not enough in themselves. Even great educators of the past–Plato, philosopher of the Ideal, Aristotle, who taught Alexander the Great, and Pythagoras, who discovered the magic of numbers in the fabric of the world–were ultimately "Old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird". What chance have these children being taught "In the best modem way"? Even the images of religion "break hearts". Ideals must always come up against the harshness of reality. They mock the human "enterprise" (Yeats did not yet have a name for it) in its failure to achieve the ideal, despite our best efforts. Piety bruises body to "pleasure soul". We "must labour to be beautiful",11Yeats WB Adam's curse.in: The collected poems of W. B. Yeats. Definitive edn. Macmillan, New York1956: 78-79Google Scholar Yeats has already stated, in despair of achieving that ideal. Wisdom is purchased through "midnight oil".10Yeats WB Among school children.in: The collected poems of W. B. Yeats. Definitive edn. Macmillan, New York1956: 212-214Google Scholar Yeats' "study / In a learned school"9Yeats WB The tower.in: The collected poems of W. B. Yeats. Definitive edn. Macmillan, New York1956: 192-197Google Scholar is, he has found, not efficacious. The discrepancy between reality and the ideal might be a cause of despair. But Yeats, in characteristic fashion, does not stop with this easy surrender. It is not the difference that matters; it is the entirety of a life—including both dreams and realities–that makes up the whole, and, as in the case of the chestnut tree of the last stanza, one part is inseparable from another. "How can we know the dancer from the dance?.… The Tower as a whole is the answer to Yeats' question "What shall I do with … age?"9Yeats WB The tower.in: The collected poems of W. B. Yeats. Definitive edn. Macmillan, New York1956: 192-197Google Scholar Like all other events of his experience, he makes poetry of it. This is a man writing with his greatest skill. No diminishing of ability can be seen here. And that old age is a continuation of the young age that preceded it. As an old man Yeats had half a century of memories, of work, of events to draw on. In his poetry he treated his personal history and his poetic creations just as he had earlier treated the history and folklore of Ireland–as myths and symbols to be used in his work. He mythologised himself, including the fact that he was now old. We must be careful not to misunderstand. This is no passive "acceptance", settling into an easy contentment with the long life that lies behind. The dancer is still dancing. As themes and images reappear, they change and become sharper, harder, more vivid. For example, birds were always important images for Yeats, from the "dove-grey edge of the sea" and the "coloured Asian birds" of The Wanderings of Oisin (1899),12Yeats WB The wanderings of Oisin.in: The collected poems of W. B. Yeats. Definitive edn. Macmillan, New York1956: 351-381Google Scholar in which "ladies, merry as birds" danced and "song-birds flew" and "daylight-darkening ravens flock". But these birds are there for atmosphere. In Responsibilities (1914), we find metaphorical birds, for example in "Friends",13Yeats WB Friends.in: The collected poems of W. B. Yeats. Definitive edn. Macmillan, New York1956: 122Google Scholar in which Yeats praises a woman for her "eagle look" of regal fierceness. The Wild Swans at Coole (1919) in its title poem14Yeats WB The wild swans at Coole.in: The collected poems of W. B. Yeats. Definitive edn. Macmillan, New York1956: 129-130Google Scholar gives us a look at a bird that will probably forever be associated with Yeats: "Unwearied still, lover by lover, They paddle in the cold Companionable streams or climb the air; Their hearts have not grown old; Passion or conquest, wander where they will, Attend upon them still." Here, at last, is an image for the old poet, whose heart also has not grown old. In "Coole Park and Ballylee, 1931"4Yeats WB Coole Park and Ballylee, 1931.in: The collected poems of W. B. Yeats. Definitive edn. Macmillan, New York1956: 239-240Google Scholar of The Winding Stair, the swan becomes an emblem of the soul, "arrogantly pure", as it springs into the sky. It is not the swan, however, but other birds that attend more closely on Yeats. In "Byzantium",15Yeats WB Byzantium.in: The collected poems of W. B. Yeats. Definitive ed. Macmillan, New York1956: 243-244Google Scholar also in the same volume, we find the "Miracle, bird or golden handiwork, More miracle than bird or handiwork, Planted on the star-lit golden bough, … In glory of changeless metal". This golden bird is one of those "artifice [s] of eternity" that Yeats chooses for his next form. But finally, in "Those Images" of Last Poems, it is neither the swan nor the golden bird but instead "An eagle on the wing" that is one of five images "That make the Muses sing".16Yeats WB Those images.in: The collected poems of W. B. Yeats. Definitive edn. Macmillan, New York1956: 316Google Scholar It is this bird that in "An Acre of Grass" defines old Yeats and his "old man's eagle mind".17Yeats WB An acre of grass.in: The collected poems of W. B. Yeats. Definitive edn. Macmillan, New York1956: 299Google Scholar This old poet is no twittering song-bird, but an entirely more fierce creature: "You think it horrible that lust and rage Should dance attention upon my old age; … What else have I to spur me into song?"18Yeats WB The spur.in: The collected poems of W. B. Yeats. Definitive edn. Macmillan, New York1956: 309Google Scholar It is not just the eagle's wild violence that captures Yeats' imagination, but its cold, glittering, pitiless eye. He has moved past the harsh images of old age and the loss that accompanies the images of youth to a reaffirmation of the life that has brought him to this pass: "I am content to follow to its source Every event in action or in thought; Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot! When such as I cast out remorse So great a sweetness flows into the breast We must laugh and we must sing, We are blest by everything. Everything we look upon is blest."19Yeats WB A dialogue of self and soul.in: The collected poems of W. B. Yeats. Definitive edn. Macmillan, New York1956: 230-232Google Scholar Now it is the loss of remorse, not artistic study, that produces blessings. The second poem of Last Poems, "Lapis Lazuli"20Yeats WB Lapis lazuli.in: The collected poems of W. B. Yeats. Definitive edn. Macmillan, New York1956: 291-293Google Scholar is one of Yeats' greatest. In the poem, it is not just now, in these times of destruction, but always, that "All things fall". That is no cause for despair. They will be rebuilt, and "those that build them again are gay". Yeats describes a piece of stone carved by an unknown artist. On the lapis two old men climb a mountain with a servant carrying a musical instrument. Overhead is a stork, symbol of longevity. They look down on the whole tragic scene of humanity, and "One asks for mournful melodies". "Accomplished fingers begin to play", and in their wrinkled faces "their eyes, / Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay". These are not old men who have taken an afternoon class in music appreciation at the neighbourhood elder care centre; they, like Yeats, are "accomplished" in their artistry. And also like Yeats they look out at the universal human destruction–including their own physical decay–with the joy of creating again. Yeats' work of self-reconstruction is nearly done. But there is still "The Circus Animals' Desertion"21Yeats WB The circus animals' desertion.in: The collected poems of W. B. Yeats. Definitive edn. Macmillan, New York1956: 335-336Google Scholar that concludes in section III, "Those masterful images because complete Grew in pure mind, but out of what began? A mound of refuse or the sweepings of a street, Old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can, Old iron, old bones, old rags, that raving slut Who keeps the till. Now that my ladder's gone, I must lie down where all the ladders start, In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart." Here, where all the ladders start, is the source of all his lifetime of images and actions for which he has forgiven himself. This is no longer the "artifice of eternity" but the heart of the real, physical, passionate old man himself, the old eagle. That is where he takes his final stand. And finally in "Under Ben Bulben",2Yeats WB Under Ben Bulben.in: The collected poems of W. B. Yeats. Definitive edn. Macmillan, New York1956: 341-344Google Scholar the last lyric in Yeats' definitive edition of his complete poetry, he counsels: "Know that when all words are said And a man is fighting mad, Something drops from eyes long blind, He completes his partial mind, For an instant stands at ease, Laughs aloud, his heart at peace. Even the wisest man grows tense With some sort of violence Before he can accomplish fate, Know his work or choose his mate." The hood drops from the eyes of the hawk, and he sees that there is a purpose in life that justifies the work of any man, "Profane perfection of mankind". It ultimately does not depend on dreams or ideal images, but on recognition and choice of fate, work, and mate. It involves acceptance of what is, without pity for self or others, with gaiety, and with fierce pride. It requires, in Yeats' case, the poetic rendering of his entire experience with an unflinching honesty that is the basis of Eliot's praise of Yeats' moral and intellectual excellence. It involves remaking himself again as what he is, a "foolish, passionate man"22Yeats W.B. A prayer for old age.in: The collected poems of W. B. Yeats. Definitive edn. Macmillan, New York1956: 281Google Scholar who deserves to have his life, work, and death seen with the fierce, pitiless eye of the eagle, as his self-written epitaph commands: "Cast a cold eye On life, on death. Horseman, pass by!"2Yeats WB Under Ben Bulben.in: The collected poems of W. B. Yeats. Definitive edn. Macmillan, New York1956: 341-344Google Scholar Yeats spent his last days away from Ireland, no longer able to safely climb the winding stair to his study at the top of his tower home in Sligo. But his personal commitments were ingrained from the beginning, as the entire chestnut tree is inherent in the nut, realised in its leaves and blossoms. The dance continued to be what the dancer had always been. I think he might have raged at the suggestion that people, when they are young, should spend time learning how to be eventually old. People, young or old, should learn how to be fully alive. That is another way of stating his professed goal of "Profane perfection of mankind". Yeats' pursuit of that ideal required that he become his own poetic image of a common human reality–ageing–and cause us to regard it in ways that are better than many other ways of seeing it.
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