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The Lake Isle of Innisfree: Complete Guide

Welcome to the complete guide for The Lake Isle of Innisfree by William Butler Yeats, created for Class 9 students. This post provides a thorough understanding of the poem from Beehive, Chapter 4. It includes a detailed summary of the poem, along with a glossary of difficult words and expressions to help clarify the language used. You’ll find answers to key questions under "Thinking about the Poem," along with a stanza-by-stanza explanation to break down its meanings. The guide also features extract-based MCQs to test your knowledge and a focus on the literary devices Yeats uses to enrich the poem. Additionally, there are important exam questions to ensure you're well-prepared. Whether you’re studying for your exams or simply delving into Yeats’s work, this guide is designed to enhance your understanding of the themes of peace, nature, and solitude in The Lake Isle of Innisfree. - Summary of The Lake Isle of Innisfree by William Butler Yeats - Glossary of Difficult Words/Expressions from The Lake Isle of Innisfree - Thinking about the Poem (Textbook Questions and Answers) - Stanza-by-Stanza Explanation of The Lake Isle of Innisfree by William Butler Yeats - Extract-Based MCQs from The Lake Isle of Innisfree - Literary Devices Used in The Lake Isle of Innisfree - Important Questions from The Lake Isle of Innisfree for Exam Prep! - Line by Line Explanation of The Lake Isle of Innisfree in Hindi and Urdu Summary of The Lake Isle of Innisfree by William Butler Yeats

The Lake Isle of Innisfree is a lyrical poem by William Butler Yeats that expresses the poet's deep yearning for peace, solitude, and a harmonious connection with nature. The poem captures Yeats's longing to escape the noise and busyness of urban life and retreat to the serene and idyllic environment of Innisfree, a small island in Lough Gill, Ireland. In the poem, the speaker dreams of building a simple life on the island, constructing a small cabin from natural materials and growing his own food, such as beans. He imagines living a life of self-sufficiency, accompanied by the soothing sounds of bees buzzing and the soft rustling of leaves. The tranquillity of Innisfree appeals to the poet's soul, offering a stark contrast to the chaos and demands of city life. Yeats evokes a vivid and enchanting atmosphere, describing how peace falls "dropping slow," like morning dew settling gently upon the earth. The speaker visualises a rhythm of life that aligns with the cycles of nature, from the shimmering light of the "midnight's all a-glimmer" to the "purple glow" of noontime. These images create a magical landscape that feels almost dreamlike, capturing the essence of Innisfree as a haven of natural beauty. The poem concludes with the speaker revealing that the desire for Innisfree is not a fleeting thought but a deep, persistent call within him. Even when he is surrounded by the grey pavements of the city, the memory of Innisfree resonates in his heart. This enduring connection highlights the universal human longing for a simpler, more peaceful existence, away from the distractions of modern life. In The Lake Isle of Innisfree, Yeats skilfully blends imagery, rhythm, and emotion to craft a poem that speaks to the timeless desire for inner peace and the restorative power of nature. Download PDF of Lake Isle of Innisfree Glossary of Difficult Words/Expressions from The Lake Isle of Innisfree Word/ExpressionDefinitionInnisfreeA small, peaceful island in Lough Gill, Ireland, symbolising tranquillity and harmony with nature.Clay and wattlesMaterials used to build simple structures; clay is mud, and wattles are woven sticks or twigs.Bee-loud gladeA clearing in a forest or field filled with the sound of buzzing bees.Dropping slowA poetic expression describing peace or stillness gently settling over a place.Veils of the morningThe thin, misty layers or fog present early in the morning.Cricket singsThe chirping sound made by crickets, often heard in quiet, rural areas.All a glimmerA phrase describing the faint, shimmering light, such as moonlight or starlight.Purple glowA soft, purplish light often seen at noon or during twilight.Linnet’s wingsRefers to linnets, small birds, and their flapping wings, creating a lively atmosphere.LappingThe gentle sound of water moving against the shore.Grey pavementsThe dull, concrete paths or streets in a city, symbolising urban life.Heart’s coreThe deepest and most emotional part of a person’s feelings or thoughts. Thinking about the Poem (Textbook Questions and Answers) I.1. What kind of place is Innisfree? (i) The poet wants to build a small cabin with clay and wattles, grow nine rows of beans, and keep a hive for honeybees. (very short answer) (ii) At Innisfree, the poet hears the sound of bees and crickets, sees the beauty of shimmering midnight and purple noon, and observes linnets flying. These sights and sounds bring him peace and happiness. (short answer) (iii) Even when far away, the poet hears the gentle lapping of lake water in his ��heart’s core,” symbolising his deep emotional connection to Innisfree and its tranquillity. (short answer) 2. By now you may have concluded that Innisfree is a simple, natural place, full of beauty and peace. How does the poet contrast it with where he now stands? The poet contrasts the serene and peaceful Innisfree with the dull, noisy, and grey city life he currently experiences. The imagery of grey pavements symbolises monotony, while Innisfree is filled with vibrant colours and calming sounds of nature. (long answer) 3. Do you think Innisfree is only a place, or a state of mind? Does the poet actually miss the place of his boyhood days? Innisfree is both a physical place and a state of mind for the poet. It represents his longing for peace, simplicity, and connection with nature. While he may not physically return, his vivid memories show that he deeply misses the place from his boyhood. (long answer) II.1. Look at the words the poet uses to describe what he sees and hears at Innisfree: (i) bee-loud glade This creates an image of a peaceful, natural spot filled with the soft buzzing sound of bees, indicating life and harmony in nature. (very short answer) (ii) evenings full of the linnet’s wings This suggests a lively, vibrant scene with linnets (small birds) flying gracefully at dusk, adding a sense of beauty and motion to the peaceful evenings. (very short answer) (iii) lake water lapping with low sounds This evokes the soothing, rhythmic sound of water gently hitting the shore, enhancing the calming atmosphere of the lake. (very short answer) 2. Look at these words: ... peace comes dropping slow / Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings These words mean that peace descends gradually, like morning mist settling over the land. The "veils of the morning" refer to the light fog or soft light at dawn, while "to where the cricket sings" symbolises a quiet rural setting where crickets chirp in the stillness. (short answer) Stanza-by-Stanza Explanation of The Lake Isle of Innisfree by William Butler Yeats First Stanza I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made: Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade. In the first stanza, the speaker declares his intention to leave his current life and journey to the tranquil Lake Isle of Innisfree. He envisions building a modest cabin using simple materials like clay and wattles, reflecting his desire for a humble and self-reliant existence. The mention of "nine bean-rows" and "a hive for the honeybee" suggests his plan to cultivate food and live in harmony with nature. The phrase "bee-loud glade" evokes the serene and vibrant sounds of nature, portraying the idyllic beauty of the island. Second Stanza And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet's wings. In the second stanza, the speaker describes the profound peace he expects to find on Innisfree. He imagines this peace descending gently, like the morning mist, creating an atmosphere of calm and stillness. Yeats uses vivid imagery to capture the timeless beauty of the island: the glimmer of moonlight at midnight, the soft purple hues of noontime, and the lively flurry of linnet birds at dusk. These details evoke a magical and harmonious setting, where every moment is steeped in natural wonder. Third Stanza I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart's core. In the final stanza, the speaker reveals that his longing for Innisfree is a constant presence in his life. Even as he walks through the grey, monotonous streets of the city, the sound of the lake's gentle waves echoes in his mind. This recurring memory is not just a thought but a deeply emotional call that resonates in his "heart's core." The stanza emphasises the speaker's unfulfilled desire for escape and the restorative connection he feels with nature, even when surrounded by the modern world's artificiality. Extract-Based MCQs from The Lake Isle of Innisfree Extract 1 I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made: Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade. MCQs - What does the speaker plan to use for building the cabin? a) Bricks and cement b) Clay and wattles c) Wood and metal d) Straw and grass Answer: b) Clay and wattles - What does the phrase "bee-loud glade" describe? a) A noisy forest b) A place where bees live c) A peaceful spot with the sound of bees d) A hive surrounded by flowers Answer: c) A peaceful spot with the sound of bees - How does the speaker plan to sustain himself on the island? a) By fishing b) By farming beans and keeping bees c) By hunting d) By collecting wild fruits Answer: b) By farming beans and keeping bees Extract 2 And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet’s wings. MCQs - What does the poet mean by "peace comes dropping slow"? a) Peace is hard to find. b) Peace arrives gradually, like morning mist. c) Peace falls from the sky. d) Peace is temporary. Answer: b) Peace arrives gradually, like morning mist. - Which natural elements are described in this stanza? a) Wind and fire b) Sunlight and water c) Cricket songs and bird wings d) Stars and clouds Answer: c) Cricket songs and bird wings - What does "noon a purple glow" suggest? a) The heat of the sun b) The soft beauty of midday light c) The colour of the sky at dawn d) A stormy afternoon Answer: b) The soft beauty of midday light Extract 3 I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart’s core. MCQs - What does the speaker hear constantly in his imagination? a) Birds chirping b) The lapping sound of lake water c) The buzzing of bees d) The rustling of leaves Answer: b) The lapping sound of lake water - What does the phrase "pavements grey" symbolise? a) The city’s dull and monotonous life b) A road filled with people c) A peaceful countryside path d) A stormy day Answer: a) The city’s dull and monotonous life - What is meant by "deep heart’s core"? a) The poet’s physical heart b) The deepest and most emotional part of the poet’s feelings c) A mysterious place in the heart d) A secret part of the poet’s thoughts Answer: b) The deepest and most emotional part of the poet’s feelings Extract 4 There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet’s wings. MCQs - What is "midnight’s all a glimmer" referring to? a) Stars twinkling in the night sky b) Fireflies glowing at night c) A lantern shining in the dark d) Reflections on water Answer: a) Stars twinkling in the night sky - What does the poet imagine during noon? a) A bright golden light b) A dull, cloudy afternoon c) A soft, purple-hued glow d) Rain falling on the island Answer: c) A soft, purple-hued glow - What kind of bird is the linnet? a) A large bird of prey b) A colourful tropical bird c) A small songbird often found in rural areas d) A migratory waterbird Answer: c) A small songbird often found in rural areas Extract 5 I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And live alone in the bee-loud glade. MCQs - What does the speaker express in this line? a) A desire to visit Innisfree for a holiday b) A firm decision to leave and live in solitude c) A wish to build a bustling community in Innisfree d) A plan to escape from his responsibilities Answer: b) A firm decision to leave and live in solitude - What does "arise and go" imply about the speaker’s mood? a) Excitement and determination b) Hesitation and doubt c) Joy and celebration d) Confusion and fear Answer: a) Excitement and determination - How does the poet view Innisfree? a) As a place for adventure and excitement b) As a serene and self-sufficient retreat c) As an imaginary, fictional island d) As a bustling city full of opportunities Answer: b) As a serene and self-sufficient retreat Literary Devices Used in The Lake Isle of Innisfree - Imagery: The poet uses vivid descriptions to create mental pictures for the reader. For example: - "bee-loud glade" creates an image of a peaceful spot with buzzing bees. - "midnight’s all a glimmer" shows a shimmering night sky. - Alliteration: The repetition of consonant sounds adds rhythm and musicality to the poem. - Example: "lake water lapping" repeats the ‘l’ sound. - Personification: The poet gives human qualities to non-living things to make them more relatable. - Example: "peace comes dropping slow" makes peace seem alive, as if it is gently falling. - Metaphor: A comparison is made without using "like" or "as." - Example: "veils of the morning" compares the morning mist to delicate veils. - Repetition: Certain phrases are repeated to emphasise the poet’s longing. - Example: "I will arise and go now" is repeated to show the poet’s strong desire to go to Innisfree. - Symbolism: Innisfree symbolises peace, nature, and simplicity, contrasting with the chaos of city life. - Onomatopoeia: The use of words that imitate sounds enhances the sensory experience. - Example: "lapping" imitates the soft sound of water hitting the shore. Important Questions from The Lake Isle of Innisfree for Exam Prep! 1. What is the poet’s longing in The Lake Isle of Innisfree? How does he plan to find peace? Answer: The poet longs for peace and solitude away from the hustle and bustle of city life. He plans to build a small cabin on the island of Innisfree, grow beans, and keep bees. The natural surroundings, including the sounds of bees and the gentle lake water, will bring him the peace he desires. 2. How does the poet describe the atmosphere of Innisfree in the poem? Answer: The poet describes Innisfree as a peaceful and serene place filled with natural beauty. He imagines a "bee-loud glade," where the air is filled with the buzzing of bees, and a calm lake with water "lapping with low sounds." The atmosphere includes beautiful sights like the glimmering midnight and the purple glow of noon, creating a perfect place for inner peace. 3. What role does nature play in the poem The Lake Isle of Innisfree? Answer: Nature plays a crucial role in the poem as it represents the peaceful and tranquil life the poet seeks. The natural elements, like the lake, bees, crickets, and birds, are symbols of harmony and serenity. The poet sees nature as a place to escape from the chaos of the city and connect with his deeper self. 4. What does the poet mean by the phrase "peace comes dropping slow"? Answer: The phrase "peace comes dropping slow" suggests that peace is not something sudden or immediate. It descends gradually, like morning mist, bringing a sense of calmness and quiet as the day begins. This gradual arrival of peace contrasts with the hurried nature of city life. 5. Explain the significance of the "bee-loud glade" in the poem. Answer: The "bee-loud glade" represents a natural, peaceful environment where the sound of bees fills the air. The buzzing of bees is symbolic of the quiet and undisturbed life the poet desires. It reflects harmony with nature and the solitude that the poet seeks away from the busy city. 6. How does the poet use imagery to describe the time of day in Innisfree? Answer: The poet uses vivid imagery to describe the time of day in Innisfree. He mentions "midnight’s all a glimmer," suggesting a soft, shimmering light at night. At noon, he describes a "purple glow," giving a sense of a warm, serene atmosphere. These images create a calm and peaceful environment, emphasizing the beauty of the island. 7. What does the poet hear in his "heart’s core" even when he is far from Innisfree? Answer: Even when the poet is away from Innisfree, he hears the sound of lake water "lapping with low sounds" in his "heart’s core." This deep emotional connection symbolizes how the peace and beauty of Innisfree remain with him, even in the busy and dull city life. It represents the poet’s longing for the island. 8. How does the poet contrast the city with the peaceful environment of Innisfree? 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thinglessnames2 · 11 months ago

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Geoffrey Hill – 'The Unconscious Mind's Intelligible Structure': A Debate

I have chosen as title for this brief and inconclusive debate a phrase from Richard Ellmann's Eminent Domain (1967, 52). It is there said of Yeats that to the end, even in his last poems where everything estimable is imperilled, he remained stubbornly loyal to the conscious mind's intelligible structure.' I think it proper to emphasize that I am taking the phrase out of context and employing it in a possibly-arbitrary fashion.

The debate begins, somewhat remotely, by attempting to distinguish between various kinds of objectivity, in the hope that the distinction may profitably be applied to a consideration of modern poetry, particularly that of Yeats. At the outset it is necessary to refer to three epigraphs or texts. The first is from Donald R. Pearce's introduction to his edition of The Senate Speeches of W.B. Yeats (1961):

Mrs Yeats once explained to me that [Yeats] was accustomed to distinguish those pages of manuscript that were to be discarded from those that were to be kept and filed by referring to the latter as 'history'; early drafts of certain poems, abandoned ideas for a play, alternative versions of some essay - all had their place in an intellectual and personal 'history that was as objective to his scrutiny as if it were not his own but the life of another man (p.22).

The second text is a phrase from an essay by Matthew Corrigan, in which he writes of the 'primary objective world... its cruelty and indifference (Encounter, July 1970, 85). The third citation is from Simone Weil:

Simultaneous composition on several planes at once is the law of artistic creation, and wherein, in fact, lies its difficulty. A poet, in the arrangement of words and the choice of each word, must simultaneously bear in mind matters on at least five or six different planes of composition. . .Politics, in their turn, form an art governed by composition. on a multiple plane. (The Need for Roots, translated by AF. Wills, 1952, 207)

One understands Simone Weil to be suggesting that poetry recognizes the primary objective world not so much by exercising its discursive faculty as by enacting a paradigm: a paradigm in which objective... scrutiny', in the Yeatsian sense, is put into the arena with Corrigan's 'primary objective world'. The value of her statement, from one's own point of view, is in her recognition that one does not attain objectivity simply by surrendering to the primary objective world. Corrigan, of course, sees this too. I am employing his phrase for its succinctness, not because I have any quarrel with it. One's debt to Simone Weil is precise. Within the circumference of her 'law', lyric poetry is necessarily dramatic: indeed, the 'different planes' actually available to a director on his theatre-stage could even be regarded as an indication of what takes place 'simultaneously' in the arena of the poem. When Yeats depicts his own search for a speech 'natural and dramatic' (Letters, ed. Wade, 1954, 583), 'simple and passionate' (ib, 668) he is far from advocating spontaneous lyricism. He is, even, in the second instance, possibly echoing Milton. An early use of the word 'passionate in Yeats's Letters is to be found in his reference, in May 1887, to T.M. Healy's 'rugged, passionate speech' in the House of Commons, 'the most human thing I heard. (35). It is arguable that Yeats's sense of 'simple and passionate speech was always forensic rather than domestic.

Yeats recognized himself, though not without irony, to be an artist in the nineteenth century Romantic tradition. This is a self-limiting truism which requires prompt qualification since, on investigation, no such simple entity as the Romantic tradition can be discovered. To make a distinction based on Yeats's own terminology in A Vision, one might suggest that Romanticism had (and has) both false and true masks. The false mask is formed from what Jacques Maritain admirably summarized as the two unnatural principles: the fecundity of money and the finality of the useful (Art and Scholasticism, translated by J.F. Scanlan, 1930, 37). The false mask either gleams amid the fecundity of money or utters, in terms of the finality of the useful, the wrong kind of moral answer. The London commercial theatre, at the turn of the century, flaunting the fecundity of money, aroused Yeats s contempt (Letters, 308–311). He was equally accurate in taking issue with George Bernard Shaw. As early as 1900 (Letters, 335) Yeats was calling Shaw 'reactionary', a particularly prophetic epithet in the light of Major Barbara. It is at least open to suggestion that Shaw's adherence to the finality of the useful, far from being antithetical to the false mask of Romanticism, is but a further manifestation of it. In paying lip-service to the realist, the practical man, Shaw makes the fecundity of money finally useful It is a synthesis of a kind, but such a synthesis as to mak Weil's 'composition on several planes' a preferable alternative.

Having sketched this view of the false mask one will rightly be required to present an image of the true mask. Thus, the 'true mask' could be shaped in one of two ways, each of which is in accord with the conscious mind's intelligible structure The first way presupposes a grammar of assent. The second w: is available if the first is not; and is the way of syntax. Synt: could be understood as Donald Davie presents it in his bor Articulate Energy (1955) or it could be extended to accomodate Simone Weil's 'law of artistic creation', as defined The Need for Roots.

In setting the phrase 'grammar of assent' in lower case ty one is arbitrarily making a metaphor, a metaphor to take place of Newman's reality. A Grammar of Assent is not same thing as a grammar of assent; and one's metaphor exists to acknowledge the difference

As the structure of the universe speaks to us of Him who made it, so the laws of the mind are the expression, not of mere constituted order, but of His will. (John Henry Cardinal Newman, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, 1913 ed., 351)

The shape of my debate, if it can be said to have one, require 'mere constituted order' to be held in equal observation against 'the conscious mind's intelligible structure'. It will not have escaped notice that my discussion relies heavily on a law' devised by a writer who, in the words of E.W.F. Tomlin, devoted a good deal of 'wistful attention' to the Church but who was unable, finally, to assent. One is, with the greatest reverence and respect, citing Simone Weil's predicament as being an exemplary one. She has been dead nearly thirty years; the issues have long been public; one is not trespassing on any privacy. It needs to be said equally strongly that one is not trespassing on one's own privacy. There is nothing 'confessional' about this debate. The situation is far from being intimate. Arguably one is describing, albeit hypothetically, a common cultural predicament: so common as to verge on mere truism. One cannot, however, pervert the purity of Newman's meaning. A Grammar of Assent would have to be Catholic: 'Non in dialectica com-placuit Deo salvum facere populum suum'. A grammar of assent, which is a lesser thing, a metaphor, does not have to be Catholic, though it could be:

. . .when faith is informed by what Newman calls real assent, which involves the imagination, it is as living as the imagination itself', and this means to say that it not only leads on to action, but is enriched and deepened by action. (Alexander Dru, Peguy, 1956, 60)

Readers of Alexander Dru's book will recognize that my emphasis does not do his argument justice. I have chosen to interpret as metaphor a statement that he did not necessarily set down as metaphor; and for this I would ask his forgiveness.

It is my contention that there are certain sectors, not necessarily or exclusively Catholic, where real assent, involving a reciprocity between imagination and action, can be observed. There is a sense in which Conrad's assent to the code of the British Merchant Service provided him with a grammar that transfigured syntax as effectively as it transcended dangerous spontaneity. Óne thinks particularly of the two polemic essays, first published in the English Review in 1912, on the sinking of the 'Titanic. His imagination not only leads on' to action but is 'enriched and deepened' by his grasp of right action:

So, once more: continuous bulkheads — a clear way of escape to the deck out of each water-tight compartment. Nothing less. And it specialists, the precious specialists of the sort that builds 'unsinkable ships, tell you that it cannot be done, don't you believe them. It can be done, and they are quite clever enough to do it too. The objections they will raise, however disguised in the solemn mystery of technical phrases, will not be technical, but commercial. (Notes on Life and Letters, 1921, 314)

One notes here how facialties come together: the faculty of moral indignation with the faculty of practical amelioration. Contrasted with this, Arnold's 'sweetness and light' is inane and what Yeats called Burke's 'great melody sounds off-key, reveals itself to be, for all its resonance, a protest against natural right in the name of expediency'. (H.J. Laski, Political Thought in England: from Locke to Bentham, (1920), 1932, 187).

With Burke, however, we approach our second category. Failing a grammar of assent, syntax may serve. Possibly it is not untrue to say that the best answer to Burke's conservatism is to be found in his own pages.' (Laski, 176). In this respect Laski's suggestion conrelates with Arnold's praise of Burke's return... upon himself'. In his essay "The Function of Criticism at the Present Time', Arnold cites the concluding passage of Burke's 'Thoughts on French Affairs' of December 1791:

The evil is stated, in my opinion, as it exists. The remedy must be where power, wisdom and information, I hope, are more united with good intentions than they can be with me. I have done with this subject, I believe, for ever. It has given me many anxious moments for the two last years. If a great change is to be made in human affairs, the minds of men will be fitted to it; the general opinions and feelings will draw that way. Every fear, every hope will forward it; and then they who persist in op. posing this mighty current in human affairs, will appear rather to resist the decrees of Providence itself, than the mere designs of men. They will not be resolute and firm, but perverse and obstinate.

Burke's passage is plangent with futile simplistic determinism and witless platitude (the minds of men will be fitted to it... this mighty current in human affairs). If Burke were spontaneously ejecting platitudes it would be contemptible. It is his very recognition of the force of the contemptible, in oneself and in others, that makes the passage an arena of 'several planes. The fact that such a quality of recognition may be thought uncharacteristic of Burke's general mode does not invalidate its particular power or detract from the effectiveness of Arnold's choice. 'That return of Burke upon himself' says Arnold, has always seemed to me one of the finest things in English literature, or indeed in any literature.' At the moment that one recognizes the justice of Arnold's praise, one simultaneously seizes upon the nub of his situation. Burke's words, which have impinged upon Arnold's critical intelligence in their true nature, that is, as thwarted politics, are made to issue from Arnold's critical intelligence as a quite distinct entity, that is, as English literature'. If, as Alexander Dru suggests, assent in the illative sense 'not only leads on to action, but is enriched and deepened by action', , then Arnold, for all the fineness of his critical eye, is subjecting Burke's sentences to a process of negative conversion. How an intuitive sense of this can oppress a fine intelligence is, I think, nowhere better described than by Arnold himself, brooding over 'Empedocles on Etna':

What then are the situations, from the representation of which, though accurate, no poetical enjoyment can be derived? They are those in which the suffering finds no vent in action... in which there is everything to be endured, nothing to be done. (Preface to Poems, 1853)

If one cannot have a grammar of assent one has a dichotomy. On one side of this will be, at worst, a dependence on tones of voice, Arnold's fastidious whining about an original shortcoming in the more delicate spiritual perceptions'; at best, syntax or 'the conscious mind's intelligible structure. On the other side there may be merely 'manic and depressive phases of activity and inactivity, mostly of an 'intermittent character', as Conor Cruise O'Brien suggests in his essay on Yeats's politics:

If a Marxist, believing that history is going in a given direction, thinks it right to give it a good shove in the way it is going, it is natural enough that one who, like Yeats, feels that it is going in the opposite direction, should accompany it that way with, if not a shove, at least a cautious tilt. (O' Brien, in A.N. Jeffares and K.G.W. Cross, eds., In Excited Reverie, 1965, 263, 265, 278)

Though his phrasing here is callous and slovenly, the critic is not at fault. He knows perfectly well what he is about and his words mimic effectively the nature of Yeats's error: an error which we are to discern amid the shambles of phrases like 'natural enough' and 'if not a shove. In Yeats's poetry there is imagination; in Yeats's politics there is action; but the one does not enrich and deepen the other. There is no real assent; there is no illative sense, no grammar. In politics, therefore, Yeats's aristocratic bias does not save him from vulgarity; the 'aristocrat' is conned by a pseudo-aristocracy of the gutter.

If, however, we accept the dichotomy as a simple datum, we have the right, within the terms of such a proviso, to praise the persistent energy of Yeats's poetic syntax. Arguably, the entire melody of Easter 1916, a poem that Maud Gonne, dedicated to the finality of the useful, thought wholly inadequate to the occasion, is itself an articulation of the Burkean 'return'. So, perhaps, is the second stanza of section five of 'Vacillation', though here one's argument is less secure. Yeats's gesture strikes one as being formulistic:

Things said or done long years ago, Or things I did not do or say But thought that I might say or do, Weigh me down, and not a day But something is recalled, My conscience or my vanity appalled. (Collected Poems, 1950, 284)

The mannerism of lines two and three is close to being a travesty of what Arnold meant when he praised that return of Burke upon himself. Perhaps, though, the last-minute snatching away of the formula constitutes a more genuine 'return'. The last four words of the stanza redeem the truism. One could speak of 'conscience' with firmness and without appearing a fool. It is 'vanity' that, at the last moment, effects the 'return', that concedes the element of clownishness in the man who might have preferred to be a hero in remorse.

It is the final lines of 'The Second Coming that offer what is perhaps the finest of these returns. Scholars have made us familiar with the volatile emotional essences, what one might call the petty romanticism, out of which this major Romantic statement developed. We have learned of the possibly subconscious recollection of Shelley's 'Ozymandias' in Yeats's mental image of a desert and a black Titan' (see Jon Stallworthy, Between the Lines, 22-3) and we have read, in Yeats's own note in Wheels and Butterflies (1934 ed., 103) of a brazen winged beast' that he 'associated with laughing, ecstatic destruction'. I have called such recollections 'petty romanticism'. Yeats made his major discovery in the poem itself, ending:

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? (C.P., 211)

As far as the original petty vision of laughing ecstatic destruct-ion' is here concerned, Yeats has revoked it, in the energy of imagination needed to recall it. He has returned upon himself and, as in the case of Burke, one would hazard the suggestion that the revocation is the outcome of acute historical intelligence drawing its energy from the struggle with that obtuseness which is the dark side of its own selfhood. In. Yeats's case, however, one does not refer so much to the conceptual intelligence operating through language-as-medium, as to the intelligence activated by the pitch of words. Jon Stallworthy has said (Between the Lines, 1963, 6) that 'where words are concerned [Yeats] has almost perfect pitch'. A poet who possesses such near-perfect pitch is able to sound out his own conceptual, discursive intelligence. The simultaneous bearing in mind described by Simone Weil would here relate to Stallworthy's suggestion about 'pitch. The poet is hearing words in depth and is therefore hearing, or sounding, history and morality in depth. It is as though the very recalcitrance of language - and we know that Yeats found the process of composition arduous - stood for the primary objective world in one of its forms of cruelty and indifference; but also for the cultivation of that other objectivity, won through toil (as objective to his scrutiny as if it were not his own but the life of another man').This is the most rewarding implication to be drawn from the exchange of letters between Yeats and Margot Ruddock. The debate between the old man and the young woman is emblematic, as when Yeats writes in reproof When your technic is sloppy your matter grows second-hand there is no difficulty to force you down under the surface _ difficulty is our plough." To this Margot Ruddock replies Do you know that you have made poetry, my solace and my joy, a bloody grind I hate! . . .poetry should not be worked at.' (R. McHugh, ed., Ah, Sweet Dancer, 1970, 81, 88). The irony is that both Yeats's reproof and Margot Ruddock's retort would have to be construed as belong. ing equally to the Romantic tradition, if such a simple entity did in fact exist. Rather they should each be recognized as an individual gyre within the so-called 'stream' of Romantic think-ing; each of necessity involved with the other and yet radically in conflict.

As I have already suggested in referring to Conor Cruise O'Brien's essay on Yeats's politics, it may sometimes be necessary to mimic a dilemma. At this point in the debate one must suggest, on the one hand, that sincerity is not enough, that creativity means cunning and artifice and that 'spontaneity' is an illusion. On the other hand one may have to concede that social empiricism has made of 'sincerity', especially in its current guise of spontaneous reaction to pressures, a potent arbiter of artistic motive and conduct. Put in its most extreme form, the sincerity of the primary objective world finds utterance in a book by the Polish writer Czeslaw Milosz:

The work of human thought should withstand the test of brutal, naked reality. If it cannot, it is worthless. Probably only those things are worth while which can preserve their validity in the eyes of a man threatened with instant death. A man is lying under machine-gun fire on a street in an embattled city. He looks at the pavement and sees a very amusing sight: the cobblestones are standing upright like the quills of a porcupine. The bullets hitting against their edges displace and tilt them. Such moments in the consciousness of a man judge all poets and philosophers. (The Captive Mind, translated by Jane Zielonko, 1953, 41).

Granted that this is a parable and not a manifesto; even so this passage moves from a first sentence of general acceptability to a third sentence that excludes from acceptability all those unbaptised by an arbitrary fire. The passage purports to establish new terms of the utmost purity: things and moments. What it does, in fact, is to elevate the man-of-the-moment. However humbled one may be by this, it is still necessary not to be bullied by its absolutist élitist tone. For those who detect the élitism, yet remain humiliated by their implied failure to live up to such demands, the poem of rigorous comfort is Yeats's'Easter 1916'. This poem could be described, in Simone Weil's terms, as a 'simultaneous review of several considerations of a very different nature (The Need for Roots, 206). It comprises middle-aged uncertain envy of those possessed by single-minded conviction, together with a humane scepticism about 'excess and romantic abstraction. One is moved by the artifice of the poem, the mastery of syntactical melody, that enacts this tension of 'several considerations'; the tune of a mind distrustful yet envious, mistrusting the abstraction, mistrusting its own mis-trust, drawn half-against its will into the chanting refrain that is both paean and threnos, yet, once drawn, committed utterly to the melody of the refrain. It is not Newman's real assent; it is not what I have chosen to call Arnold's negative conversion; it is certainly not Milosz's 'validity of moments in the con-sciousness. One can say only that it is a paradigm of the hard-won 'sanctity of the intellect (cf. Letters, 525). 'Intellect' is bound to be misunderstood but, in context, it should not be. One is in no way seeking to equate it with 'cerebral'. Yeats claims in A Vision (1962 re-issue, 268):

A civilisation is a struggle to keep self-control

but this poem, in its measure and syntax, stands as his more exact imagining of that struggle and that civility. One may well feel that Yeats presents arguments, or theories, that require to be answered. Yet even when this is so it remains true for him as for Burke: that the best answer is to be found in his own pages.

Published in Agenda, vol. 9/10 (Autumn–Winter 1971/2)

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