The Tower (Yeats)/The Tower

by W. B. Yeats

THE TOWER

IWhat shall I do with this absurdity—O heart, O troubled heart—this caricature,Decrepit age that has been tied to meAs to a dog's tail?

Never had I moreExcited, passionate, fantasticalImagination, nor an ear and eyeThat more expected the impossible—No, not in boyhood when with rod and fly,Or the humbler worm, I climbed Ben Bulben's backAnd had the livelong summer day to spend. It seems that I must bid the Muse go pack,Choose Plato and Plotinus for a friendUntil imagination, ear and eye,Can be content with argument and dealIn abstract things; or be derided byA sort of battered kettle at the heel.III place upon the battlements and stareOn the foundations of a house, or whereTree, like a sooty finger, starts from the earth;And send imagination forthUnder the day's declining beam, and callImages and memoriesFrom ruin or from ancient trees,For I would ask a question of them all.

Beyond that ridge lived Mrs. French, and onceWhen every silver candlestick or sconceLit up the dark mahogany and the wine,A serving man that could divineThat most respected lady's every wish,Ran and with the garden shearsClipped an insolent farmer's earsAnd brought them in a little covered dish.

Some few remembered still when I was youngA peasant girl commended by a song,Who'd lived somewhere upon that rocky place,And praised the colour of her face,And had the greater joy in praising her,Remembering that, if walked she thereFarmers jostled at the fairSo great a glory did the song confer.

And certain men, being maddened by those rhymes,Or else by toasting her a score of times,Rose from the table and declared it rightTo test their fancy by their sight;But they mistook the brightness of the moonFor the prosaic light of day—Music had driven their wits astray—And one was drowned in the great bog of Cloone.

Strange, but the man who made the song was blind,Yet, now have considered it, I findThat nothing strange; the tragedy beganWith Homer that was a blind man,And Helen has all living hearts betrayed.O may the moon and sunlight seemOne inextricable beam,For if I triumph I must make men mad.

And I myself created HanrahanAnd drove him drunk or sober through the dawnFrom somewhere in the neighbouring cottages.Caught by an old man's juggleriesHe stumbled, tumbled, fumbled to and froAnd had but broken knees for hireAnd horrible splendour of desire;I thought it all out twenty years ago:

Good fellows shuffled cards in an old bawn;And when that ancient ruffian's turn was onHe so bewitched the cards under his thumbThat all, but the one card, becameA pack of hounds and not a pack of cards,And that he changed into a hare.Hanrahan rose in frenzy there And followed up those baying creatures towards—

O towards I have forgotten what—enough!I must recall a man that neither loveNor music nor an enemy's clipped earCould, he was so harried, cheer;A figure that has grown so fabulousThere's not a neighbour left to sayWhen he finished his dog's day:An ancient bankrupt master of this house.

Before that ruin came, for centuries,Rough men-at-arms, cross-gartered to the kneesOr shod in iron, climbed the narrow stairs,And certain men-at-arms there were Whose images, in the Great Memory stored,Come with loud cry and panting breast To break upon a sleeper's restWhile their great wooden dice beat on the board.

As I would question all, come all who can;Come old, necessitous, half-mounted man;And bring beauty's blind rambling celebrant;The red man the juggler sentThrough God-forsaken meadows; Mrs. French,Gifted with so fine an ear;The man drowned in a bog's mire,When mocking muses chose the country wench.

Did all old men and women, rich and poor,Who trod upon these rocks or passed this door,Whether in public or in secret rage As I do now against old age?But I have found an answer in those eyesThat are impatient to be gone;Go therefore; but leave HanrahanFor I need all his mighty memories.

Old lecher with a love on every windBring up out of that deep considering mindAll that you have discovered in the grave,For it is certain that you haveReckoned up every unforeknown, unseeingPlunge, lured by a softening eye,Or by a touch or a sigh,Into the labyrinth of another's being;

Does the imagination dwell the mostUpon a woman won or woman lost?If on the lost, admit you turned asideFrom a great labyrinth out of pride, Cowardice, some silly over-subtle thoughtOr anything called conscience once;And that if memory recur, the sun'sUnder eclipse and the day blotted out.IIIIt is time that I wrote my will;I choose upstanding men,That climb the streams untilThe fountain leap, and at dawnDrop their cast at the sideOf dripping stone; I declareThey shall inherit my pride,The pride of people that wereBound neither to Cause nor to State,Neither to slaves that were spat on,Nor to the tyrants that spat,The people of Burke and of GrattanThat gave, though free to refuse—Pride, like that of the morn,When the headlong light is loose,Or that of the fabulous horn, Or that of the sudden showerWhen all streams are dry,Or that of the hourWhen the swan must fix his eyeUpon a fading gleam,Float out upon a longLast reach of glittering streamAnd there sing his last song.And I declare my faith;I mock Plotinus' thoughtAnd cry in Plato's teeth,Death and life were notTill man made up the whole,Made lock, stock and barrelOut of his bitter soul,Aye, sun and moon and star, all,And further add to thatThat, being dead, we rise,Dream and so createTranslunar Paradise.I have prepared my peaceWith learned Italian thingsAnd the proud stones of Greece, Poet's imaginingsAnd memories of love,Memories of the words of women,All those things whereofMan makes a superhuman,Mirror-resembling dream.

As at the loophole there,The daws chatter and scream,And drop twigs layer upon layer.When they have mounted up,The mother bird will restOn their hollow top,And so warm her wild nest.

I leave both faith and prideTo young upstanding menClimbing the mountain side,That under bursting dawnThey may drop a fly;Being of that metal madeTill it was broken byThis sedentary trade.

Now shall I make my soulCompelling it to studyIn a learned schoolTill the wreck of bodySlow decay of blood,Testy deliriumOr dull decrepitude,Or what worse evil come—The death of friends, or deathOf every brilliant eyeThat made a catch in the breath—Seem but the clouds of the skyWhen the horizon fades;Or a bird's sleepy cryAmong the deepening shades.

 1926