Consolation

W. B. Yeatsfirst published 1929from The Winding Stair and Other Poems12 lines

O but there is wisdomIn what the sages said;But stretch that body for a whileAnd lay down that headTill I have told the sagesWhere man is comforted.

How could passion run so deepHad I never thoughtThat the crime of being bornBlackens all our lot?But where the crime’s committedThe crime can be forgot.

Text: The Winding Stair and Other Poems (Macmillan, London, 1933). Public domain.

In brief

Summary

A lover answers the sages' gloom: passion itself brings comfort.

The woman grants that the sages have wisdom, then tells her lover to stretch out and lay down his head while she tells them "Where man is comforted". In the second stanza she explains. Passion runs deep precisely because we have thought "the crime of being born" darkens all our lives. Yet in the act of love, where that crime is committed again, it can be forgotten. The comfort is bodily, and it answers philosophy from a lover's bed.

Lines to remember

That the crime of being born

The crime can be forgot.

Line by line

Lines 1 to 6Beyond the sages
She begins with a concession, "O but there is wisdom", granting the sages their due. Then she turns tenderly to her lover: stretch out, "lay down that head", while she tells the sages "Where man is comforted".
Lines 7 to 12The crime forgot
Passion runs deep, she argues, because we have believed that "the crime of being born" blackens our lot. But the answer lies in the body: in the place where that crime is committed, "The crime can be forgot".

Themes

Love as comfort

The sages offer wisdom; the woman offers comfort. Her argument is that the gloom of philosophy is real but not final. In love, where new life begins, the sense of guilt at being born can be forgotten for a while, and that forgetting is the consolation of the title.

Birth and guilt

The phrase "the crime of being born" echoes the Soul's "crime of death and birth" in "A Dialogue of Self and Soul". Here a woman gives the Self's answer in miniature: the crime is committed again, not escaped, and that is where comfort lies.

Context

This is the fifth poem of "A Woman Young and Old", first published in The Winding Stair (New York, 1929) and collected in The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933). Placed after "Her Triumph", it shows the woman at the height of her love, speaking with confidence to her lover and, over his head, to the wise.

Form

Two six-line stanzas of short lines, rhymed only on lines 2, 4 and 6 ("said", "head", "comforted"; "thought", "lot", "forgot"). The unrhymed lines keep the voice easy and conversational, while the rhymes lock each stanza's argument shut on its last word.