The poem
We sat together at one summer's end, That beautiful mild woman, your close friend, And you and I, and talked of poetry. I said, 'A line will take us hours maybe; Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought, Our stitching and unstitching has been naught. Better go down upon your marrow-bones And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather; For to articulate sweet sounds together Is to work harder than all these, and yet Be thought an idler by the noisy set Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen The martyrs call the world.' And thereupon That beautiful mild woman for whose sake There's many a one shall find out all heartache On finding that her voice is sweet and low Replied: 'To be born woman is to know-- Although they do not talk of it at school-- That we must labour to be beautiful.'
I said, 'It's certain there is no fine thing Since Adam's fall but needs much labouring. There have been lovers who thought love should be So much compounded of high courtesy That they would sigh and quote with learned looks Precedents out of beautiful old books; Yet now it seems an idle trade enough.'
We sat grown quiet at the name of love; We saw the last embers of daylight die, And in the trembling blue-green of the sky A moon, worn as if it had been a shell Washed by time's waters as they rose and fell About the stars and broke in days and years.
I had a thought for no one's but your ears: That you were beautiful, and that I strove To love you in the old high way of love; That it had all seemed happy, and yet we'd grown As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.
What a wonderful poem! It's for sure one of my better like ones by Yeats. Emerged from God's own image, Adam's existence was accomanied by Eve--the counter part. As the story was told, both ate the fruit, got the boot for their gaining of knowledge and lost of the innocence.
Patricia, your first four words seem very astute, after that your grammar and comments are useless. Adam's Curse IS a wonderful poem... It is a poem about poetry. It is hard not to get a sense of vertigo when peering down at the layers of meaning in the poem, but read carefully and you will see that Yeats sees poetry as a sprezzatura job, a discussion that brings people together, and a beautiful craft directed at a what is born to be beautiful (woman, his Beloved). The ending reveals a failure. That he performs his art so well, and we assume also takes up the art of love (see the 3rd stanza) with the same grace, compounds the despair of the final revelation of love grown "weary-hearted".
This is one of my favorite of Yeats' poems (though I guess I could say that about many). It too was based on a real event. Once when Yeats went out walking with Maud and her sister, "the beautiful mild woman" he describes here as her "close friend." They got to talking about poetry. What was Adam's curse? After getting booted out of the Garden of Eden, we would have to work for all the things that were dear to us:…
Read the whole commentThis is one of my favorite of Yeats' poems (though I guess I could say that about many).
It too was based on a real event. Once when Yeats went out walking with Maud and her sister, "the beautiful mild woman" he describes here as her "close friend." They got to talking about poetry.
What was Adam's curse? After getting booted out of the Garden of Eden, we would have to work for all the things that were dear to us: our food, our children, love. All beautiful things, in fact, from poetry to a woman's face, require labor, even though the rest of the world ("bankers and clergymen") may not acknowledge it as such.
In the last stanzas he mentions love. It, too, required much labor once, when people used to quote things out of old books and sigh and sob and do all sorts of other things that now seemed quite silly. But at the end of the poem he has a thought for the woman: that he could love her in that way, in the way they used to love before, and they could grow old together, happy.
Yeats was changing his style at the time but this one is like his earlier poems.
Read the following powem together with this one may yield further insight:
I had this thought a while ago,
'My darling cannot understand
What I have done, or what would do
In this blind bitter land.'
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;
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';
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.