A Full Moon in March: watercolour book cover

A collection of poems

A Full Moon in March

193518 poems0 in full here

Macmillan, London, November 1935 (poems and the plays A Full Moon in March and The King of the Great Clock Tower). Several poems first appeared in The King of the Great Clock Tower, Commentaries and Poems (Cuala Press, 1934; Macmillan, New York, 1935).

  1. 1Parnell's FuneralUnder the Great Comedian's tomb the crowd.Yeats blames the Irish crowd for Parnell's fall and judges their successors.
  2. 2Three Songs to the Same TuneGrandfather sang it under the gallows:Three rough marching songs about order, fanatics and Ireland's heroic past.
  3. 3Alternative Song for the Severed Head in 'The King of the Great Clock Tower'Saddle and ride, I heard a man say,Heroes of Yeats's own poems and plays ride out over Sligo's mountains.
  4. 4Two Songs Rewritten for the Tune's SakeMy Paistin Finn is my sole desire,Two love-lorn folk songs of a lonely suitor and a jealous rhymer.
  5. 5A Prayer for Old AgeGod guard me from those thoughts men thinkAn old poet prays to stay foolish and passionate rather than wise.
  6. 6Church and StateHere is fresh matter, poet,A hope that Church and State will tame the mob, quickly abandoned.
  7. 7Ribh at the Tomb of Baile and AillinnBecause you have found me in the pitch-dark nightAn old hermit reads by the light of two dead lovers' embrace.
  8. 8Ribh denounces PatrickAn abstract Greek absurdity has crazed the manRibh rejects Patrick's all-male Trinity for one of man, woman and child.
  9. 9Ribh in EcstasyWhat matter that you understood no word!Ribh returns from a moment of mystical ecstasy to ordinary life.
  10. 10ThereThere all the barrel-hoops are knit,Four lines on a place where every opposite and cycle is complete.
  11. 11Ribh considers Christian Love insufficientWhy should I seek for love or study it?Ribh studies hatred as a way of stripping the soul bare for God.
  12. 12He and SheAs the moon sidles upThe soul, like the moon, draws near to God and flies away.
  13. 13What Magic Drum?He holds him from desire, all but stops his breathing lestA tender, strange vision of a god as both father and mother.
  14. 14Whence had they Come?Eternity is passion, girl or boyLovers, ecstatics and history itself act out a drama they cannot see.
  15. 15The Four Ages of ManHe with body waged a fight,A man's life as four wars: with body, heart, mind and God.
  16. 16ConjunctionsIf Jupiter and Saturn meet,Two meetings of planets stand for two opposing ages of history.
  17. 17A Needle's EyeAll the stream that's roaring byThe roaring stream of all existence pours out of a needle's eye.
  18. 18MeruCivilisation is hooped together, broughtCivilisations are illusions that man's restless thought must tear down.