NOTES

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLVIII, Issue 46, 22 November 1923, Page 30

NOTES

W. Yeats ■ ■ ■; < *^'fr-y\^ 7;.,. A few days ago the cables informed us that the Nobel Prize for literature was this year conferred on William Butler Yeats, the Dublin poet. The Free State had already honored Yeats by giving him a seat in its Senad." It is-well that it is mindful, among its preoccupations, of the sonorous command which Dante passed down to us along the,years: ;'.'.;.,;..-••, ~-'. '. • ... ..; _ _■... ! ■,■':;■*/ . s>. ..•'.'"•>'.;■' : :-..'' '■■ .Onoratel'altwimopoetat.^ >:':'■% ',,•.'-' ' ■;'■ ''«.:;"'■■' '■ '■ ?". ■' L* ' And it is gratifying that the honor done "Kim in his own land has been enhanced by the signal distinction, which, the Nobel Prize confers on him. We Irishmen love his poetry, and it is not always clear to us that the complaints of obscurity -and mistiness are justified, for very often a very little knowledge of Irish legends dispels the clouds, and not rarely the darkness is .not in the poetry but in the mind of the reader. He is honored as a poet, but he is popular among his friends for his simple boyishness, his brilliant conversation, his sincere patriotism. Thirty years ago he flung himself enthusiastically into the Gaelic Revival, and in one way and another he has done good service to his country in the interval. He has not greatly changed from what he was then. One may still, find his portrait in the pen-picture which George Moore drew of him several years ago, under the name, of Ulick Dean, ■in Evelyn Innes: . .... . .'. • ■''•■•■. He had one of those long Irish faces, all in a straight line, with flat, slightly hollow cheeks, v and a long chin. It was clean-shaven, and a heavy lock of black hair was always falling over his eyes. It was his eyes "that gave the sombre ecstatic character to his face. They were large, dark, deeply set, singularly shaped, and they seemed to smoulder like fires in caves, leaping arid sinking out of the darkness. He was a' tall, thin young man, . and he wore a black jacket and a large necktie, tied with the ends hanging loose over his. coat. , His Works During the past thirty years Yeats has written several volumes of poems, a number of plays, and half a dozen prose works. For the understanding and appreciation of his works, the reader must be familiar with the old Irish folklore, as well as know something about Yeats's poetic notions of a pantheistic Nature. In these two directions the twin keys to his symbolism will be found, and, with the keys in hand, the way to understanding and delight is easy. That he is a great poet —perhaps the greatest of our day—few will deny. He is also a prose writer of wonderful charm and rare distinction. And his plays are things of beauty, the loveliness of which can. be tasted even in the study. He takes up old, old folk tales, common ; among peasants, and transforms them into masterpieces of word-painting and melody. He takes the reader by the hand and leads him into a fairy world, just as the fairychild lured Maire in The Land of Heart's Desire; • "Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood, ..-j.-vßut just is wisdom, Time an endless song. . ■. . \ . ?■> Where nobody gets old, and crafty and wise, • .Where' nobody gets old and bitter of tongue, - ' Where nobody gets old and godly and'grave, ' : ' - And where kind tongues bring no captivity, ..,,:' ;,,. . For -we are only true to the far lights ■■;:.:':. ..; J( ~ ■'.; -We follow singing over ■valley*and hill.; 4" "" 'r:

>The : Countess Cathleen, with its theme of self-sacrifice; Cathleen ni Hoolihan, with its symbolic presentation of the ever old and ever young spirit of Ireland Shadowy Waters; spiritual and romantic, telling of Forgael, the sea-king sailing, in search of a land "where no love fades from its first sighs and laughter," are all beautiful works of imagination, full of music and imagery and. idealism, lik» almost everything he wrote. /" •' His Lyrics - ? 'Yeats has enriched the treasury of the world's literature with many lovely lyrics, fit to rank with the imperish T able lines of Burns, Beranger, Moore, Goethe, or Heine. As we take it that everybody is familiar with the "Lake Isle. of Innisfree," we need not quote it here. ■• But we will end our note by quoting a couple of others less well known. Here is a little ballad which John MoOormack loves to sing Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet; She passed the salley gardens with little snow white feet. She bid me take life easy, as the leaves grow on the tree; But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree. In a field by a river, my love and I did stand, And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow white hand. She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears. That lyric, so simple and so. perfect, has the spontaneous appeal of the note of a thrush. Here is another which we have loved no less for the lapse of time during twenty years or more: When you are old and gray and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; How many loved your moments of glad grace, " ' And loved your beauty with love false or true; But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face.. ! i And bending down beside the glowing bars Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled And paced upon the mountains overhead And hid his face amid a crowd of stars. The beautiful lines, The Hose of the World, ought to have a page in every anthology: Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream? For these red lips, with ail their mournful pride, Mournful that no new wonder, may betide, , Troy passed away i,n one high funeral . gleam, ... :'■,■• And Usna's. children died. .t ; ..,;. , r , ]-,/..,-< ~..., "'• •. ;;• f • i-'U ■ •"•'■ !-*' :-.-<i'^s.'f We and the laboring world are passing by: :■""' -% Amid men's souls, that waver arid give' place, "' / "; Like the pale waters in their wintry race,. y "Under the passing stars, foam of the sky, Lives on this lonely face. ..-..• .-.-_- : -'.';- .;; Bow down, archangels, in your dim abode: '• ■ Before you were", or any hearts to beat, ;; Weary and kind, one lingered by His seat; -■■'-'■ "'.'■X,-. He made the ,world to be a grassy road,! , Before her wandering feet. ' , v. ~,,*• _,..,':;■.:':.-:.:. ■■■•.;.,•; •,.-,■'',.. -^,,,,...«wv^;,..... ■,-.-:.-'^. ; .-.:: a> --- ; ; " i:: Heading of books : may make men learned/;bat J&lis >.' converse arid business that make --■. VpT.fl }