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Since there are autobiographical elements in this poem–civil service, school inspections, elusive lover–I am going to treat the speaker as being Yeats himself. The poem is divided into eight sections (stanzas) of eight lines each, loosely in iambic pentamer meter1, with an abababcc rhyme scheme.
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I
I walk through the long schoolroom questioning;
A kind old nun in a white hood replies;
The children learn to cipher and to sing,
To study reading-books and history,
To cut and sew, be neat in everything
In the best modern way—the children’s eyes
In momentary wonder stare upon
A sixty-year-old smiling public man.
II
I dream of a Ledaean body, bent
Above a sinking fire, a tale that she
Told of a harsh reproof, or trivial event
That changed some childish day to tragedy—
Told, and it seemed that our two natures blent
Into a sphere from youthful sympathy,
Or else, to alter Plato’s parable,
Into the yolk and white of the one shell.
III
And thinking of that fit of grief or rage
I look upon one child or t’other there
And wonder if she stood so at that age—
For even daughters of the swan can share
Something of every paddler’s heritage—
And had that colour upon cheek or hair,
And thereupon my heart is driven wild:
She stands before me as a living child.
IV
Her present image floats into the mind—
Did Quattrocento finger fashion it
Hollow of cheek as though it drank the wind
And took a mess of shadows for its meat?
And I though never of Ledaean kind
Had pretty plumage once—enough of that,
Better to smile on all that smile, and show
There is a comfortable kind of old scarecrow.
V
What youthful mother, a shape upon her lap
Honey of generation had betrayed,
And that must sleep, shriek, struggle to escape
As recollection or the drug decide,
Would think her son, did she but see that shape
With sixty or more winters on its head,
A compensation for the pang of his birth,
Or the uncertainty of his setting forth?
VI
Plato thought nature but a spume that plays
Upon a ghostly paradigm of things;
Solider Aristotle played the taws
Upon the bottom of a king of kings;
World-famous golden-thighed Pythagoras
Fingered upon a fiddle-stick or strings
What a star sang and careless Muses heard:
Old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird.
VII
Both nuns and mothers worship images,
But those the candles light are not as those
That animate a mother’s reveries,
But keep a marble or a bronze repose.
And yet they too break hearts—O Presences
That passion, piety or affection knows,
And that all heavenly glory symbolise—
O self-born mockers of man’s enterprise;
VIII
Labour is blossoming or dancing where
The body is not bruised to pleasure soul,
Nor beauty born out of its own despair,
Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.
O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?
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In Stanza I, the poem, taking place in a classroom, begins appropriately with a question that the speaker, in his role as inspector, asks of the nun accompanying him on his inspection: something similar to, what is the children’s education like? The nun (not unusual in Catholic Ireland) replies that the students learn math (to cipher), music (to sing), reading, history, to cut and sew, and manners (to be neat), a not unusual education. With a touch of humor–and the introduction of the poem’s main focus–Yeats paints a picture of the curious children staring in wonder at this old man, out of place in their classroom.
In Stanza II, unlike the students’ concerns with mundane (best modern way) tasks, Yeats’s imagination (dream)is sparked by the memory of a beautiful (Ledaean2 body) woman, a poetic vision of the woman he has loved (in vain, we know from his life), bent above a sinking, aging fire . She recounts how an experience of a harsh scolding (reproof) or trivial consequence so affected her young sensibilities that it turned her day into tragedy. Yeats is so sympathetic to her youthful vulnerability that it seemed their two natures conjoined (blent) into a a single sphere, or else, the opposite of Plato’s parable3, into the yolk and white of the one shell. Here again youth, excessive emotion (tragedy) and age (sublime understanding) are contrasted.
In Stanza III Yeats wonders if his love, when young, looked like the children in front of him, for even daughters of the swan, Leda’s daughters, are still children, and in envisioning her his heart is driven wild, as if she were there (She stands before me).
But reality sets in (Stanza IV) as he pictures her now (Her present image floats into the mind). Did an Italian Renaissance (quattrocento) artist fashion her present face, with its hollow cheeks that drank the wind and ate shadows for its meat, all the more poignant as he stands among schoolchildren with their fresh, glowing faces. Time passes and with it our appearance fades. He reminisces about his own younger looks: although he didn’t have Ledaean features, he still had his own kind of pretty plumage. He abruptly calls himself up short (enough of that), realizing that his pining is out of place in a room full of children. Better to put on a pleasant face (smile on all that smile) to show them that even a self-effacing old scarecrow can be non-threatening and easy-going (comfortable)
Reality persists, however (Stanza V). He envisions a youthful mother with a baby (shape)in her lap, ordinarily an idyllic scene, but here undercut by asserting that the child, typically, was tempted away (betrayed) at birth from its beatific pre-birth existence by the drug (honey of generation, perhaps also intending mother’s milk) of material life and its pleasures, and now sleeps, shrieks, or struggles to escape when recollecting what it has lost, or when under the drug’s influence. Would any mother, could she see her babe as an old man with sixty or more winters on its head (the speaker’s age, an old scarecrow), think her son worth (compensation) the pang of his birth, or the uncertainty of knowing what his life would be (setting forth), a sardonic, even wounding concept. These are not just casual thoughts any longer; they are bitter at the consequences of growing old.
Stanza VI. Perhaps our glorified achievements in thought elevate us from our dreary nature. Plato believed that the visual world was like the spume of a wave, hiding the wave’s true essence, just a vague representation (paradigm); Aristotle, more the materialist (solider), tutored and disciplined (played the taws–a leather strap) upon Alexander the Great’s (king of kings) bum (bottom) one of history’s greatest leaders. Pythagoras, with his supposed thigh made of gold, made music (Fingered upon a fiddle-stick or strings) of the stars, so beautiful that even the careless (i.e., free from care) Muses 4could hear it. But what did all this great thought come to? The philosophers , with their ideas, like the rest of us finally amounted to nothing more that scarecrows in their old age (Old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird).
In Stanza VII the real and the transcendent5 are contrasted. It begins with another contrast, that between the images worshipped by nuns and those worshipped by mothers:, marble or bronze statues (repose) by the former, and one’s children (those that animate a mother’s reveries). by the latter. Both are capable of breaking hearts: the aloof, static repose of statues which cannot fully convey the essence of what is behind it, or the animated objects of a mother’s reveries, her children, who can only disappoint by their transience. The apostrophic6 O Presences are the transcendent images behind the corporeal sculptures or children, that inhabit man’s imagination, through passion, piety, or affection, and that represent the glory of heaven. That transcendence, suggested as it is by man’s own creations (self-born), by comparison mocks man’s actual efforts and the products of his efforts. These are ideals we can never achieve, though we sense them.
Ultimately, in Stanza VIII, Yeats attempts to reconcile the contrasting concepts of the poem: youth and age, real and ideal. True Enterprise/Labour is best realized (blossoming or dancing) when the soul’s pleasure is not achieved at the expense of the body, beauty is not born from despair, and wisdom is not the result (out of) of exhausting (blear-eyed), unrelenting (midnight oil) effort, all of which subvert the purity of their inspiration (presences). Through a second apostrophe, O chestnut tree, observing the real as opposed to the ideal of the first one, Yeats asks what defines this great rooted blossomer: its leaf, its blossom, or its bole (trunk), or, unstated, the unity of the parts. A third apostrophe, O body (real) swayed to music (ideal), again we are moved by the unity of these parts, and a fourth, O brightening glance, the epiphanic7 comprehension when we finally can realize transcendent qualities of unity, resolve all the contrasts by suggesting–just as Yeats and his love were united together into a single sphere or the yolk and white of a single egg–that dual elements in life cannot be separated (real and ideal, youth and age, creation and creator) but are parts of single unities, for How can we know the dancer from the dance?
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- each line consisting of 5 poetic “feet,”pentameter, of two syllables, unstressed and stressed , iamb ↩︎
- a Spartan queen so beautiful and desirable that Zeus, in the form of a swan, takes her with force. See my post on Yeats’s poem Leda and the Swan ↩︎
- describes original humans as spherical, powerful beings with four arms, four legs, and two faces. Fearing their strength, Zeus split them in half, causing humans to forever search for their “other half” or soulmate to feel complete. ↩︎
- In Greek mythology, the nine Muses are goddesses of inspiration for literature, science, and the arts ↩︎
- beyond or above the range of normal or merely physical human experience. ↩︎
- a figure of speech that involves addressing someone or something that is not present ↩︎
- a moment of sudden revelation or insight. ↩︎
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(Note: You can view most poems on the website, Poetry Foundation.)
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