1190 Yeats, William Butler
ments grey” (l. 11) and thinking back to his home in
Ireland. Yeats relates that he was in London when a
fountain in a shop window made him homesick; the
trickling water brought back memories of a lake in
the Irish countryside. The speaker in the poem longs
for a simpler mode of living, one in which he will
live in a small cabin of his own construction. This
image of Ireland as agrarian and bucolic is Yeats’s
way of emphasizing the virtues of the nation, which
stands in contrast to the gritty industrialism of such
countries as England.
Yeats was committed to the idea of Irish home
rule, and that commitment is apparent in such poems
as “Easter 1916” (1921). This poem famously chroni-
cles the Easter Rising of 1916, in which Irish patriots
were executed by English officials for their subversive
actions. The refrain “A terrible beauty is born” appears
at the end of all but one stanza, and in this line Yeats
registers awe at the devotion of the patriots to their
cause, but also a heavy heart for the costs of seeking
freedom. Published in an earlier volume, “September
1913” (1914) shares the pensive mood of “Easter
1916” and laments the fact that “Romantic Ireland’s
dead and gone” in another of Yeats’s use of repeating
lines. The strength of these poems shows that Yeats
could record current political issues while producing
poems that are finely constructed and moving pieces
of literature in their own right.
“Easter 1916” illustrates the human expense
of politics, and in a pair of poems about the loss
of Robert Gregory, the son of Yeats’s friend Lady
Gregory, the poet recognizes the price of war. In
“An Irish Airman Foresees his Death” (1917) Yeats’s
airman decides, “Those that I fight I do not hate, /
Those that I guard I do not love” (ll. 3–4). The air-
man is thus ambivalent about his duty, and he has
a premonition of his own end among “the tumult
in the clouds” (l. 12). “In Memory of Major Robert
Gregory” (1919) recounts the loss of many of Yeats’s
friends, but particularly focuses on the title figure.
Robert Gregory died while in Italy in 1918. In
addition to mourning Gregory’s passing, Yeats also
points out that Gregory is a source of nationalistic
pride as he paid the ultimate sacrifice while in the
service. So, too, does Yeats as a poet attempt to
answer what is not an easy call to serve his country.
Eventually Ireland did achieve independence,
and based on his high profile as a celebrated poet,
Yeats served in the Irish senate. This public side of
Yeats’s life is reflected in “Among Schoolchildren”
(1928), in which the speaker calls himself “A sixty-
year-old smiling public man” (l. 8) while the children
stare at him as he tours their classroom. In one of his
late poems, “Under Ben Bulben” (1939), Yeats speaks
out as an elder statesman of Irish letters, admonish-
ing, “Irish poets learn your trade / Sing whatever is
well made” (ll. 68–69). He instructs his followers to
celebrate the peasantry and “country gentleman” but
to avoid the type of people marked by “unremem-
bering hearts and heads” (l. 72). The speaker thus
seeks to promote those who will continue what is
best about Ireland. They will remember the past and
cherish its lessons in their hearts, just as future Irish
poets must learn to do.
Yeats often reflects in his poetry on the dif-
ficulty of working on national themes. “The Fas-
cination of What’s Difficult” (1910) captures his
frustration with the Abbey Theatre, where the pro-
Irish plays of Yeats and others found a venue. He
criticizes “Theatre business, management of men”
(l. 11) and the challenges of producing the plays.
In the late poem “The Circus Animals’ Desertion”
(1939), he considers his long literary career, nam-
ing the cultural figures—Oisin, Countess Cath-
leen, Cuchulain—who have populated his work.
The speaker remains dissatisfied with what he has
achieved and feels he must begin again with noth-
ing but the “foul rag and bone shop of the heart” (l.
40) to guide him.
Joe Moffett