Yeats’ grandfather was a Protestant, and his father did not believe in God and was a man of science, but, as many other Irish poets were from a Catholic background, and because Yeats yearned for a stable life after his unadjusted childhood, he chose to write about very Irish and also somewhat Catholic idealisms in his poetry. Yeats used many different styles to write so originally about these things which he held so close to is heart.
One of my favourite poems by W.B. Yeats is “He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven”. In this poem, which is written about Maude Gonne, he basically says of how all he can offer her are his dreams of an Ireland in which the deep traditionalism is celebrated through literature, and he almost pleads with her not to ruin his dreams with her militant ways. The lines,
“Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Inwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half- light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet…”
Show to me that Yeats would give anything for Maude, and, more to the point, would give anything if only she could see his views, instead of being a rebel for the cause of Nationalism. When the poem goes on to say,
“I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.”
I feel as if he is almost imploring of her not to ruin his beautiful picture of Ireland being rich in literature with her militancy and violence. I also think that the dreams could symbolise Yeats’ love for Maude, and in the poem he asks her not to turn his proposals down so hastily. In the poem I get a sense of just how in love with Maude he really is, as he is willing to risk his precious dreams for a chance of happiness with his love Maude.
Another one of Yeats’ poems that I can identify with is “The Stolen Child”, which, even though it shares the theme of love with the first poem, it is of Yeats’ love for something completely different. This poem does not concern Maude Gonne, the topic of so many of Yeats’ poems; in fact, he did not know her when he wrote this poem. The poem is about the terrible things that happen in the world, and how rural Ireland is a good place to be secluded from this. It is in a ballad- style, which was adopted by Yeats as he was experimenting with different poetry styles until he found his own. In this poem, Yeats talks about faeries and of a secluded waterfall in Sligo called Glen- Car. He probably picked here to be the setting of his poem because it is a very still and peaceful place in Ireland, unchanged by the revolutions of the land around it. It has mountains and woods around it, and is physically secluded from the rest of Ireland, and all its hardships and troubles. “The Stolen Child” has a chorus, just as a love song would, and it sounds very melodious as if it was already put to music. It changes from,
“Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world is more full of weeping than you
Can understand.”
To, for the last time it is said,
“For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
From a world more full of weeping than you
Can understand.”
This is to make the end of the poem more final, and to say that the child is taken away from the hardships of life. I believe that this poem could be about the kind of person he wants to fall in love with; unspoiled by Ireland’s industrialisation, and who deeply loves Ireland’s traditionalism and culture, and who appreciates Irish literature.
To conclude, I believe that, although the poems have the same theme of love, they still differ greatly, and each show Yeats at two different stages in his writing career; and that both pieces have very different styles and very different topics.
