Love is just a vague and fleeting emotion in the early love poetry of W. B. Yeats. After his meeting with Maud Gonne, Yeats was transformed into a great love poet. He had great love and devotion for her. It was lifelong and it is only natural that we find this woman everywhere in his poetry.
As Stock puts it: ‘If every painting of Maud Gonne vanished, something of her would remain credible in Yeats’ poetry.’
Yeats met Maud Gonne when he was twenty three years old and fell instantly in love with her. He has a few equals in English poetry in the way he has immortalized the beauty and charm of Maud Gonne in the poem ‘No Second Troy’:
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this
Being high and solitary and most stern.
Yeats’ love lyrics are among the best lyrics ever written in English language. ‘When You Are Old’ is a very famous love poem of Yeats where he makes it clear that his love is for his beloved’s pilgrim soul whereas the love of others may well be for the physical charm.
How many loved your moments of glad grace
And love your beauty with love false or true
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.
In the poem ‘He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven’, Yeats says
But I, being poor, have only my dreams
I have spread my dreams under your feet
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
Maud Gonne got married to Major McBride in 1903. After this incident Yeats’ love poetry became much more poignant. In many of his poems, we find the sense of loss resulting from his failure. A Prayer for my Daughter, When You Are Old, and No Second Troy are some of these poems.
Maude Gonne once told Yeats that he would, must thank her for refusing to marry him, and the world should be inclined to agree with her, because out of that refusal sprang some of the best love poems in English literature.
Yeats is one of the greatest love poets of the English language. The lyric grace, the authenticity of feelings, and his expression of the sense of loss resulting from failure in love, all go into ranking him with other great love poets like John Donne, Robert Browning, Andrew Marvell, John Keats and Shelley.
Yeats met Maud Gonne when he was twenty three years old and fell instantly in love with her. He has a few equals in English poetry in the way he has immortalized the beauty and charm of Maud Gonne in the poem ‘No Second Troy’:
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this
Being high and solitary and most stern.
Yeats’ love lyrics are among the best lyrics ever written in English language. ‘When You Are Old’ is a very famous love poem of Yeats where he makes it clear that his love is for his beloved’s pilgrim soul whereas the love of others may well be for the physical charm.
How many loved your moments of glad grace
And love your beauty with love false or true
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.
In the poem ‘He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven’, Yeats says
But I, being poor, have only my dreams
I have spread my dreams under your feet
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
Maud Gonne got married to Major McBride in 1903. After this incident Yeats’ love poetry became much more poignant. In many of his poems, we find the sense of loss resulting from his failure. A Prayer for my Daughter, When You Are Old, and No Second Troy are some of these poems.
Maude Gonne once told Yeats that he would, must thank her for refusing to marry him, and the world should be inclined to agree with her, because out of that refusal sprang some of the best love poems in English literature.
Yeats is one of the greatest love poets of the English language. The lyric grace, the authenticity of feelings, and his expression of the sense of loss resulting from failure in love, all go into ranking him with other great love poets like John Donne, Robert Browning, Andrew Marvell, John Keats and Shelley.
Further Topics:
Edmund Spenser as a Poet John Donne, as a Metaphysical Poet
