A Woman Homer sung

W. B. Yeatsfirst published 1910from The Green Helmet and Other Poems21 lines

If any man drew nearWhen I was young,I thought, “He holds her dear,”And shook with hate and fear.But oh, ’twas bitter wrongIf he could pass her byWith an indifferent eye.

Whereon I wrote and wrought,And now, being grey,I dream that I have broughtTo such a pitch my thoughtThat coming time can say,“He shadowed in a glassWhat thing her body was.”

For she had fiery bloodWhen I was young,And trod so sweetly proudAs ’twere upon a cloud,A woman Homer sung,That life and letters seemBut an heroic dream.

Text: Poetry, by W. B. Yeats (Standard Ebooks, 2024), from the collected editions of 1908 to 1928. Public domain.

In brief

Summary

An ageing poet hopes his verse has captured a woman worthy of Homer.

The poet looks back on the jealousy of his youth. When any man came near the woman he loved, he shook "with hate and fear", and yet it seemed a "bitter wrong" if a man could pass her with indifference. Now, grey-haired, he dreams that his long work of writing has captured her so well that the future will say he "shadowed in a glass" what she was. The last stanza remembers her "fiery blood" and proud step, as if walking on a cloud, and compares her to the heroines of Homer, so that life and literature both seem "an heroic dream".

Lines to remember

He shadowed in a glass

A woman Homer sung,

But an heroic dream.

Line by line

Lines 1 to 7Young jealousy
When he was young, every man who approached her seemed a rival, and he "shook with hate and fear". The next thought turns the jealousy inside out: it was "bitter wrong" if any man could see her "With an indifferent eye". He could not bear others loving her, or failing to.
Lines 8 to 14Writing her image
So he "wrote and wrought", working hard at his art. Now, "being grey", he dreams that his verse is so refined that later ages will say "He shadowed in a glass" the truth of "What thing her body was": his poems are a mirror that holds her true image.
Lines 15 to 21A woman Homer sung
The last stanza returns to her youth: her "fiery blood", her step "so sweetly proud" that she seemed to walk on a cloud. She belongs with the women of Homer's epics, and her presence makes "life and letters" alike seem "But an heroic dream".

Themes

Love and jealousy

The first stanza catches a lover's contradiction precisely. He hates any man who "holds her dear", but thinks it "bitter wrong" for any man to be indifferent to her. His love demands that she be admired by everyone and possessed by no one else.

Art and memory

The poet's hope is that his work will outlast both of them. His verse is a "glass", a mirror, in which "coming time" can see "What thing her body was". The phrase "wrote and wrought" stresses the labour of this: making her image permanent takes a lifetime of work.

The heroic

She is "A woman Homer sung", a figure out of epic, and the comparison raises her above ordinary life. The final lines make the whole world of the poem, "life and letters", seem a dream of heroes. Love, in this view, is the source of heroic poetry.

Context

The poem was published in The Green Helmet and Other Poems (Cuala Press, 1910). The woman is Maud Gonne, the nationalist campaigner Yeats met in 1889 and loved for most of his life, who refused his proposals and married John MacBride in 1903.

Yeats often compared Maud Gonne to Helen of Troy, the most beautiful woman of Homer's Iliad, whose beauty caused the Trojan War. The comparison runs through this book, most famously in "No Second Troy", and it lets the grey-haired poet treat his own love story as the stuff of epic.

Form

Three seven-line stanzas of short lines, mostly of three beats. Each stanza rhymes abaabcc ("near", "young", "dear", "fear", "wrong", "by", "eye"), and "When I was young" returns as line 2 of the first and last stanzas. The short lines and closing couplets make each stanza end crisply, like a considered judgement.