The Green Helmet and Other Poems

The Green Helmet and Other Poems
William Yeats

William Butler Yeats

The Green Helmet and Other Poems

HIS DREAM

Crying amid the glittering sea,
Naming it with ecstatic breath,
Because it had such dignity
By the sweet name of Death.

Though I’d my finger on my lip,
What could I but take up the song?
And fish and crowd and gaudy ship
Cried out the whole night long,

And fishes bubbling to the brim
Cried out upon that thing beneath,
It had such dignity of limb,
By the sweet name of Death.

And though I would have hushed the crowd
There was no mother’s son but said,
“What is the figure in a shroud
Upon a gaudy bed?”

I swayed upon the gaudy stern
The butt end of a steering oar,
And everywhere that I could turn
Men ran upon the shore.

A WOMAN HOMER SUNG

For she had fiery blood
When I was young,
And trod so sweetly proud
As ’twere upon a cloud,
A woman Homer sung,
That life and letters seem
But an heroic dream.

Whereon I wrote and wrought,
And now, being gray,
I dream that I have brought
To such a pitch my thought
That coming time can say,
“He shadowed in a glass
What thing her body was.”

If any man drew near
When I was young,
I thought, “He holds her dear,”
And shook with hate and fear.
But oh, ’twas bitter wrong
If he could pass her by
With an indifferent eye.

THAT THE NIGHT COME

She lived in storm and strife.
Her soul had such desire
For what proud death may bring
That it could not endure
The common good of life,
But lived as ’twere a king
That packed his marriage day
With banneret and pennon,
Trumpet and kettledrum,
And the outrageous cannon,
To bundle Time away
That the night come.

THE CONSOLATION

That had she done so who can say
What would have shaken from the sieve?
I might have thrown poor words away
And been content to live.

That every year I have cried, “At length
My darling understands it all,
Because I have come into my strength,
And words obey my call.”

And I grew weary of the sun
Until my thoughts cleared up again,
Remembering that the best I have done
Was done to make it plain;

I had this thought awhile ago,
“My darling cannot understand
What I have done, or what would do
In this blind bitter land.”

FRIENDS

Now must I these three praise —