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- Herausgeber: DigiCat
- Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
- Sprache: Englisch
W. B. Yeats's "Poems" is a rich tapestry of lyrical verse that captures the evolving landscapes of love, politics, and the spiritual dimensions of human experience. Written during a time of personal and national upheaval, Yeats's poetry intertwines traditional forms with modernist sensibilities, showcasing his innovative use of symbolism and mystical imagery. The collection reflects the poet's deep engagement with contemporary issues, folklore, and an unwavering quest for identity, making it a cornerstone of early 20th-century literature. W. B. Yeats, a Nobel laureate and a prominent figure in the Irish literary revival, drew inspiration from his profound connection to Ireland's cultural heritage and personal experiences. His intricate understanding of the tensions between desire and loss, alongside his exploration of the esoteric, is deeply rooted in his life journey. Yeats's role as a political activist and his affiliations with various artistic movements further influence the thematic depth of this collection, marking him as a pivotal voice in capturing the zeitgeist of his time. "Poems" is a must-read for those interested in the intersection of personal and political in poetry, as it offers profound insights into the human condition. The work invites readers to delve into Yeats's intricate world, blending passion with philosophy, and presenting a captivating portrait of an artist grappling with the complexities of existence. Whether a novice or a seasoned reader of poetry, Yeats's lyrical brilliance awaits your discovery.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
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Poems
Table of Contents
PREFACE
During the last year I have spent much time altering "The Countess Cathleen" and "The Land of Heart's Desire" that they might be a part of the repertory of the Abbey Theatre. I had written them before I had any practical experience, and I knew from the performance of the one in Dublin in 1899 and of the other in London in 1894 that they were full of defects. But in their new shape—and each play has been twice played during the winter—they have given me some pleasure, and are, I think, easier to play effectively than my later plays, depending less upon the players and more upon the producer, both having been imagined more for variety of stage-picture than variety of mood in the player. It was, indeed, the first performance of "The Countess Cathleen," when our stage-pictures were made out of poor conventional scenery and hired costumes, that set me writing plays where all would depend upon the player. The first two scenes are wholly new, and though I have left the old end in the body of this book I have given in the notes an end less difficult to producer and audience, and there are slight alterations elsewhere in the poem. "The Land of Heart's Desire," besides some mending in the details, has been thrown back in time because the metrical speech would have sounded unreal if spoken in a country cottage now that we have so many dialect comedies. The shades of Mrs. Fallan and Mrs. Dillane and of Dan Bourke and the Tramp would have seemed too boisterous or too vivid for shades made cold and distant with the artifice of verse.
I have not again retouched the lyric poems of my youth, fearing some stupidity in my middle years, but have changed two or three pages that I always knew to be wrong in "The Wanderings of Usheen."
W.B. YEATS.
June, 1912.
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION
I have added some passages to "The Land of Heart's Desire," and a new scene of some little length, besides passages here and there, to "The Countess Cathleen." The goddess has never come to me with her hands so full that I have not found many waste places after I had planted all that she had brought me. The present version of "The Countess Cathleen" is not quite the version adopted by the Irish Literary Theatre a couple of years ago, for our stage and scenery were capable of little; and it may differ more from any stage version I make in future, for it seems that my people of the waters and my unhappy dead, in the third act, cannot keep their supernatural essence, but must put on too much of our mortality, in any ordinary theatre. I am told that I must abandon a meaning or two and make my merchants carry away the treasure themselves. The act was written long ago, when I had seen so few plays that I took pleasure in stage effects. Indeed, I am not yet certain that a wealthy theatre could not shape it to an impressive pageantry, or that a theatre without any wealth could not lift it out of pageantry into the mind, with a dim curtain, and some dimly lighted players, and the beautiful voices that should be as important in poetical as in musical drama. The Elizabethan stage was so little imprisoned in material circumstance that the Elizabethan imagination was not strained by god or spirit, nor even by Echo herself—no, not even when she answered, as in "The Duchess of Malfi," in clear, loud words which were not the words that had been spoken to her. We have made a prison-house of paint and canvas, where we have as little freedom as under our own roofs, for there is no freedom in a house that has been made with hands. All art moves in the cave of the Chimæra, or in the garden of the Hesperides, or in the more silent house of the gods, and neither cave, nor garden, nor house can show itself clearly but to the mind's eye.
Besides rewriting a lyric or two, I have much enlarged the note on "The Countess Cathleen," as there has been some discussion in Ireland about the origin of the story, but the other notes are as they have always been. They are short enough, but I do not think that anybody who knows modern poetry will find obscurities in this book. In any case, I must leave my myths and symbols to explain themselves as the years go by and one poems lights up another, and the stories that friends, and one friend in particular, have gathered for me, or that I have gathered myself in many cottages, find their way into the light. I would, if I could, add to that majestic heraldry of the poets, that great and complicated inheritance of images which written literature has substituted for the greater and more complex inheritance of spoken tradition, some new heraldic images, gathered from the lips of the common people. Christianity and the old nature faith have lain down side by side in the cottages, and I would proclaim that peace as loudly as I can among the kingdoms of poetry, where there is no peace that is not joyous, no battle that does not give life instead of death; I may even try to persuade others, in more sober prose, that there can be no language more worthy of poetry and of the meditation of the soul than that which has been made, or can be made, out of a subtlety of desire, an emotion of sacrifice, a delight in order, that are perhaps Christian, and myths and images that mirror the energies of woods and streams, and of their wild creatures. Has any part of that majestic heraldry of the poets had a very different fountain? Is it not the ritual of the marriage of heaven and earth?
These details may seem to many unnecessary; but after all one writes poetry for a few careful readers and for a few friends, who will not consider such details unnecessary. When Cimabue had the cry it was, it seems, worth thinking of those that run; but to-day, when they can write as well as read, one can sit with one's companions under the hedgerow contentedly. If one writes well and has the patience, somebody will come from among the runners and read what one has written quickly, and go away quickly, and write out as much as he can remember in the language of the highway.
W.B. YEATS.
January, 1901.
***
THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN
"The sorrowful are dumb for thee"
Lament of Morion Shehone for Miss Mary Bourke
TO MAUD GONNE
The Scene is laid in Ireland and in old times
SCENE I
Scene.—A room with lighted fire, and a door into the open air, through which one sees, perhaps, the trees of a wood, and these trees should be painted in flat colour upon a gold or diapered sky. The walls are of one colour. The scent should have the effect of missal painting.Mary, awoman of forty years or so, is grinding a quern.
MARY
What can have made the grey hen flutter so?
(TEIG, a boy of fourteen, is coming in with turf, which he lays beside the hearth.)
TEIG
They say that now the land is famine struck The graves are walking.
MARY
There is something that the hen hears.
TEIG
And that is not the worst; at Tubber-vanach A woman met a man with ears spread out, And they moved up and down like a bat's wing.
MARY
What can have kept your father all this while?
TEIG
Two nights ago, at Carrick-orus churchyard, A herdsman met a man who had no mouth, Nor eyes, nor ears; his face a wall of flesh; He saw him plainly by the light of the moon.
MARY
Look out, and tell me if your father's coming.
(TEIG goes to door.)
TEIG
Mother!
MARY
What is it?
TEIG
In the bush beyond, There are two birds—if you can call them birds—I could not see them rightly for the leaves. But they've the shape and colour of horned owls And I'm half certain they've a human face.
MARY
Mother of God, defend us!
TEIG
They're looking at me. What is the good of praying? father says. God and the Mother of God have dropped asleep. What do they care, he says, though the whole land Squeal like a rabbit under a weasel's tooth?
MARY
You'll bring misfortune with your blasphemies Upon your father, or yourself, or me. I would to God he were home—ah, there he is.
(SHEMUS comes in.)
What was it kept you in the wood? You know I cannot get all sorts of accidents Out of my mind till you are home again.
SHEMUS
I'm in no mood to listen to your clatter.Although I tramped the woods for half a day, I've taken nothing, for the very rats, Badgers, and hedgehogs seem to have died of drought, And there was scarce a wind in the parched leaves.
TEIG
Then you have brought no dinner.
SHEMUS
After that I sat among the beggars at the cross-roads, And held a hollow hand among the others.
MARY
What, did you beg?
SHEMUS
I had no chance to beg, For when the beggars saw me they cried out They would not have another share their alms, And hunted me away with sticks and stones.
TEIG
You said that you would bring us food or money.
SHEMUS
What's in the house?
TEIG
A bit of mouldy bread.
MARY
There's flour enough to make another loaf.
TEIG
And when that's gone?
MARY
There is the hen in the coop.
SHEMUS
My curse upon the beggars, my curse upon them!
TEIG
And the last penny gone.
SHEMUS
When the hen's gone, What can we do but live on sorrel and dock, And dandelion, till our mouths are green?
MARY
God, that to this hour's found bit and sup,Will cater for us still.
SHEMUS
His kitchen's bare. There were five doors that I looked through this day And saw the dead and not a soul to wake them.
MARY
Maybe He'd have us die because He knows, When the ear is stopped and when the eye is stopped, That every wicked sight is hid from the eye, And all fool talk from the ear.
SHEMUS
Who's passing there? And mocking us with music?
(A stringed instrument without.)
TEIG
A young man plays it, There's an old woman and a lady with him.
SHEMUS
What is the trouble of the poor to her? Nothing at all or a harsh radishy sauce For the day's meat.
MARY
God's pity on the rich. Had we been through as many doors, and seen The dishes standing on the polished wood In the wax candle light, we'd be as hard, And there's the needle's eye at the end of all.
SHEMUS
My curse upon the rich.
TEIG
They're coming here.
SHEMUS
Then down upon that stool, down quick, I say, And call up a whey face and a whining voice, And let your head be bowed upon your knees.
MARY
Had I but time to put the place to rights.
(CATHLEEN, OONA, and ALEEL enter.)
CATHLEEN
God save all here. There is a certain house, An old grey castle with a kitchen garden, A cider orchard and a plot for flowers,Somewhere among these woods.
MARY
We know it, lady. A place that's set among impassable walls As though world's trouble could not find it out.
CATHLEEN
It may be that we are that trouble, for we— Although we've wandered in the wood this hour— Have lost it too, yet I should know my way, For I lived all my childhood in that house.
MARY
Then you are Countess Cathleen?
CATHLEEN
And this woman, Oona, my nurse, should have remembered it, For we were happy for a long time there.
OONA
The paths are overgrown with thickets now, Or else some change has come upon my sight.
CATHLEEN
And this young man, that should have known the woods— Because we met him on their border but now, Wandering and singing like a wave of the sea— Is so wrapped up in dreams of terrors to come That he can give no help.
MARY
You have still some way, But I can put you on the trodden path Your servants take when they are marketing. But first sit down and rest yourself awhile, For my old fathers served your fathers, lady, Longer than books can tell—and it were strange If you and yours should not be welcome here.
CATHLEEN
And it were stranger still were I ungrateful For such kind welcome—but I must be gone, For the night's gathering in.
SHEMUS
It is a long while Since I've set eyes on bread or on what buys it.
CATHLEEN
So you are starving even in this wood,Where I had thought I would find nothing changed. But that's a dream, for the old worm o' the world Can eat its way into what place it pleases.
(She gives money.)
TEIG
Beautiful lady, give me something too; I fell but now, being weak with hunger and thirst And lay upon the threshold like a log.
CATHLEEN
I gave for all and that was all I had. Look, my purse is empty. I have passed By starving men and women all this day, And they have had the rest; but take the purse, The silver clasps on't may be worth a trifle. But if you'll come to-morrow to my house You shall have twice the sum.
(ALEEL begins to play.)
SHEMUS (muttering)
What, music, music!
CATHLEEN
Ah, do not blame the finger on the string;The doctors bid me fly the unlucky times And find distraction for my thoughts, or else Pine to my grave.
SHEMUS
I have said nothing, lady. Why should the like of us complain?
OONA
Have done. Sorrows that she's but read of in a book Weigh on her mind as if they had been her own.
(OONA, MARY, and CATHLEEN go out. ALEEL looks defiantly at SHEMUS.)
ALEEL (singing)
Were I but crazy for love's sake I know who'd measure out his length, I know the heads that I should break, For crazy men have double strength. There! all's out now to leave or take, And who mocks music mocks at love; And when I'm crazy for love's sake I'll not go far to choose.
(Snapping his fingers in SHEMUS' face.)
Enough! I know the heads that I shall break.
(He takes a step towards the door and then turns again.)
Shut to the door before the night has fallen, For who can say what walks, or in what shape Some devilish creature flies in the air, but now Two grey-horned owls hooted above our heads.
(He goes out, his singing dies away. MARY comes in. SHEMUS has been counting the money.)
SHEMUS
So that fool's gone.
TEIG
He's seen the horned owls too. There's no good luck in owls, but it may be That the ill luck's to fall upon his head.
MARY
You never thanked her ladyship.
SHEMUS
Thank her, For seven halfpence and a silver bit?
TEIG
But for this empty purse?
SHEMUS
What's that for thanks, Or what's the double of it that she promised? With bread and flesh and every sort of food Up to a price no man has heard the like of And rising every day.
MARY
We have all she had; She emptied out the purse before our eyes.
SHEMUS (to MARY, who has gone to close the door)
Leave that door open.
MARY
When those that have read books, And seen the seven wonders of the world, Fear what's above or what's below the ground, It's time that poverty should bolt the door.
SHEMUS
I'll have no bolts, for there is not a thing That walks above the ground or under it I had not rather welcome to this houseThan any more of mankind, rich or poor.
TEIG
So that they brought us money.
SHEMUS
I heard say There's something that appears like a white bird, A pigeon or a seagull or the like, But if you hit it with a stone or a stick It clangs as though it had been made of brass, And that if you dig down where it was scratching You'll find a crock of gold.
