Ireland's Bard

THE KING OF THE GREAT CLOCK TOWER, COMMENTARIES AND POEMS-- William Butler Yeats--Macmillan ($1.50).

William Butler Yeats has never been crowned Laureate of Ireland, but he is more truly Ireland's Bard than Masefield is England's. When a Dubliner stops his chatter and raises his right hand as if to take an oath, his companions know that he is about to quote the words of William Butler Yeats. Nearing three score and ten (he will be 70 on June 13), Poet Yeats has written enough and well enough in his long life to satisfy most men. But few poets are willing to die before their time; though his Muse is not as young as she was, Poet Yeats still invites her to his board. His latest collation was slim pickings--a one-act play, a dozen poems, a few pages of commentary--compared to the poetic feasts he used to set forth.

Conscious of his own scarcity, Poet Yeats half-apologizes for it: "A year ago I found that I had written no verse for two years; I had never been so long barren; I had nothing in my head, and there used to be more than I could write." Unwilling to think that he had "grown too old for poetry," he decided to force himself to write, then get unfriendly advice on what he had written. Verses in hand, he "went a considerable journey partly to get the advice of a poet not of my school who would, as he did some years ago, say what he thought. I asked him to dine, tried to get his attention." But all the other poet would talk about was politics ("He said apropos of nothing 'Arthur Balfour was a scoundrel' "). He urged Yeats to read Major Douglas (on Social Credit), went away shaking his head because Yeats replied that he was re-reading Shakespeare and Chaucer, found all he wanted of modern life in detectifiction and Wild West stories. Next day he sent his criticism of Yeats's verses: "Putrid."

Dandered but not dashed, Yeats sought friendlier advice, found it, and decided to publish his verses and his play. Readers will be glad he did, but will find his prose comments more moving and less obscure. In them he complains, like all good Irishmen, of Ireland--thinks it a crying shame that the distinguished Irish Academy should have to meet in a hired room (five shillings a night), bewails the modern Irish spirit ("our upper class cares nothing for Ireland except as a place for sport . . . the rest of the population is drowned in religious and political fanaticism"), sees darker times ahead if mob rule is not broken ("our public life will move from violence to violence, or from violence to apathy, our Parliament disgrace and debauch those that enter it; our men of letters live like outlaws in their own country"). Once, he says, he hoped a party was being formed to which he could give his allegiance, and he wrote some songs for it; but when it went the way of all parties he rewrote his songs, "increased their fantasy, their extravagance, their obscurity, that no party might sing them."

Here is fresh matter, poet,

Matter for old age meet;

Might of the Church and the State,

Their mobs put under their feet.

O but heart's wine shall run pure

Mind's bread grow sweet.

That were a cowardly song,

Wander in dreams no more;

What if the Church and the State

Are the mob that howls at the door!

Wine shall run thick to the end,

Bread taste sour.

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