Against Unworthy Praise
Listen
Text: Poetry, by W. B. Yeats (Standard Ebooks, 2024), from the collected editions of 1908 to 1928. Public domain.
In brief
SummaryA poet tells his heart to scorn the praise of fools.
The poet speaks to his own heart and tells it to be at peace. His work was done "for a woman's sake", so no "knave nor dolt" can damage it by withholding applause. It is enough if the work seemed, to her and to him, like "A dream that a lion had dreamed", a secret between two proud people. In the second stanza he catches his heart still wanting praise, and offers a prouder example: the woman herself, whose strange, tangled life earned slander and ingratitude from the same fools. Yet she goes "singing upon her road", "Half lion, half child", and she is at peace.
Lines to remember
A dream that a lion had dreamed
Between the proud and the proud.
Half lion, half child, is at peace.
Line by line
Lines 1 to 4Be at peace
"O heart, be at peace": the poet talks himself down. Neither "knave nor dolt", neither rogue nor fool, can break work that was never made for their applause, because it was made "for a woman's sake".
Lines 5 to 10A lion's dream
It is enough if his work has seemed, so long as she renewed its strength, like "A dream that a lion had dreamed", so powerful that "the wilderness cried aloud". Its real audience is private: "A secret between you two", shared "Between the proud and the proud".
Lines 11 to 14Still wanting praise
"What, still you would have their praise!" He scolds his heart and points it to "a haughtier text": the woman's own life, a "labyrinth" of days made confusing even to her by "her own strangeness".
Lines 15 to 20Half lion, half child
What her dreaming gave the world "Earned slander, ingratitude" from the very same fools, "and worse wrong than these". Yet she goes "singing upon her road", "Half lion, half child", and "is at peace". Her calm is the lesson his heart needs.
Themes
Pride and praise
The poem rejects public approval. The "knave" and "dolt" cannot judge work made for one woman, and the poet's true reward is "A secret between you two", kept "Between the proud and the proud". Pride here is a virtue: the self-respect that does not need applause.
A woman's example
The woman is the poem's model of how to live. Her dreaming "Earned slander, ingratitude", and "worse wrong", yet she is "singing upon her road". The image "Half lion, half child" joins fierce courage with innocence, and explains how she can be at peace when he cannot.
Inner peace
The poem opens with "O heart, be at peace" and ends with "is at peace". The movement is from command to example: he cannot simply order his heart to be calm, so he shows it someone who is. Peace comes from indifference to unworthy judges.
Context
The poem was published in The Green Helmet and Other Poems (Cuala Press, 1910), a book that often turns on the poet's scorn for public opinion. The woman is not named. She is usually identified with Maud Gonne, the subject of the neighbouring love poems, whose public life brought her both devotion and bitter criticism.
Form
Two ten-line stanzas of short, three-beat lines. The rhymes are interlaced and sometimes loose: "because" and "applause", "break" and "sake", "aloud" and "proud" in the first stanza; "praise" and "days", "text" and "perplexed" in the second. The poem is framed as a talk with the poet's own heart, and it begins and ends on the word "peace".