Responsibilities, and Other Poems — William Butler Yeats
You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org . If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title : Responsibilities, and other poems Author : W. B. Yeats Illustrator : T. Sturge Moore Release date : July 27, 2011 [eBook #36865] Most recently updated: January 7, 2021 Language : English Other information and formats : www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36865 Credits : Produced by Meredith Bach, David Garcia and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) *** START OF , Limited LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO RESPONSIBILITIES AND OTHER POEMS BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1916 All rights reserved Copyright, 1911 By WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS Copyright, 1904, 1908, and 1912 By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Copyright, 1916 By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1916. CONTENTS PAGE Responsibilities , 1912-1914— Introductory Rhymes 1 The Grey Rock 3 The Two Kings 11 To a Wealthy Man 29 September 1913 32 To a Friend whose Work has come to Nothing 34 Paudeen 35 To a Shade 36 When Helen Lived 39 The Attack on 'The Playboy of the Western World,'—1907 40 The Three Beggars 41 The Three Hermits 45 Beggar to Beggar cried 47 The Well and the Tree 49 Running to Paradise 50 The Hour before Dawn 52 The Player Queen 59 The Realists 61 The Witch 62 The Peacock 63 The Mountain Tomb 64 To a Child dancing in the Wind 66 A Memory of Youth 68 Fallen Majesty 70 Friends 71 The Cold Heaven 73 That the Night come 75 An Appointment 76 The Magi 77 The Dolls 78 A Coat 80 Closing Rhymes 81 From the Green Helmet and other Poems , 1909-1912— His Dream 85 A Woman Homer sung 87 The Consolation 89 No Second Troy 91 Reconciliation 92 King and No King 94 Peace 96 Against Unworthy Praise 97 The Fascination of What's Difficult 99 A Drinking Song 101 The Coming of Wisdom with Time 102 On hearing that the Students of our New University have joined the Ancient Order of Hibernians 103 To a Poet 104 The Mask 105 Upon a House shaken by the Land Agitation 106 At the Abbey Theatre 108 These are the Clouds 110 At Galway Races 112 A Friend's Illness 113 All Things can tempt me 114 The Young Man's Song 115 The Hour-Glass —1912 117 Notes 181 ' In dreams begins responsibility. ' Old Play. ' How am I fallen from myself, for a long time now I have not seen the Prince of Chang in my dreams. ' Khoung-fou-tseu. RESPONSIBILITIES [INTRODUCTORY RHYMES] Pardon, old fathers, if you still remain Somewhere in ear-shot for the story's end, Old Dublin merchant 'free of ten and four' Or trading out of Galway into Spain; And country scholar, Robert Emmet's friend, A hundred-year-old memory to the poor; Traders or soldiers who have left me blood That has not passed through any huxter's loin, Pardon, and you that did not weigh the cost, Old Butlers when you took to horse and stood Beside the brackish waters of the Boyne Till your bad master blenched and all was lost; You merchant skipper that leaped overboard After a ragged hat in Biscay Bay, You most of all, silent and fierce old man Because you were the spectacle that stirred My fancy, and set my boyish lips to say 'Only the wasteful virtues earn the sun'; Pardon that for a barren passion's sake, Although I have come close on forty-nine I have no child, I have nothing but a book, Nothing but that to prove your blood and mine. January 1914. THE GREY ROCK Poets with whom I learned my trade, Companions of the Cheshire Cheese, Here's an old story I've re-made, Imagining 'twould better please Your ears than stories now in fashion, Though you may think I waste my breath Pretending that there can be passion That has more life in it than death, And though at bottling of your wine The bow-legged Goban had no say; The moral's yours because it's mine. When cups went round at close of day— Is not that how good stories run?— Somewhere within some hollow hill, If books speak truth in Slievenamon, But let that be, the gods were still And sleepy, having had their meal, And smoky torches made a glare On painted pillars, on a deal Of fiddles and of flutes hung there By the ancient holy hands that brought them From murmuring Murias, on cups— Old Goban hammered them and wrought them, And put his pattern round their tops To hold the wine they buy of him. But from the juice that made them wise All those had lifted up the dim Imaginations of their eyes, For one that was like woman made Before their sleepy eyelids ran And trembling with her passion said, 'Come out and dig for a dead man, Who's burrowing somewhere in the ground, And mock him to his face and then Hollo him on with horse and hound, For he is the worst of all dead men.' We should be dazed and terror struck, If we but saw in dreams that room, Those wine-drenched eyes, and curse our luck That emptied all our days to come. I knew a woman none could please, Because she dreamed when but a child Of men and women made like these; And after, when her blood ran wild, Had ravelled her own story out, And said, 'In two or in three years I need must marry some poor lout,' And having said it burst in tears. Since, tavern comrades, you have died, Maybe your images have stood, Mere bone and muscle thrown aside, Before that roomful or as good. You had to face your ends when young— 'Twas wine or women, or some curse— But never made a poorer song That you might have a heavier purse, Nor gave loud service to a cause That you might have a troop of friends. You kept the Muses' sterner laws, And unrepenting faced your ends, And therefore earned the right—and yet Dowson and Johnson most I praise— To troop with those the world's forgot, And copy their proud steady gaze. 'The Danish troop was drive