Her Praise

W. B. Yeatsfirst published 1917from The Wild Swans at Coole18 lines

She is foremost of those that I would hear praised.I have gone about the house, gone up and downAs a man does who has published a new bookOr a young girl dressed out in her new gown,And though I have turned the talk by hook or crookUntil her praise should be the uppermost theme,A woman spoke of some new tale she had read,A man confusedly in a half dreamAs though some other name ran in his head.She is foremost of those that I would hear praised.I will talk no more of books or the long warBut walk by the dry thorn until I have foundSome beggar sheltering from the wind, and thereManage the talk until her name come round.If there be rags enough he will know her nameAnd be well pleased remembering it, for in the old days,Though she had young men’s praise and old men’s blame,Among the poor both old and young gave her praise.

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

In brief

Summary

The poet searches for someone who will praise the woman he loves.

The poet wants to hear one woman praised above all others. He goes about the house restlessly, like an author with a new book or a girl in a new gown, steering the talk towards her, but the company lets him down: a woman talks about a story she has read, a man answers vaguely with some other name in his head. So he gives up on drawing-room talk and the war, and resolves to walk out and find a beggar sheltering from the wind. A poor man, he is sure, will remember her gladly, because in the old days the poor, young and old, all praised her.

Lines to remember

She is foremost of those that I would hear praised.

Among the poor both old and young gave her praise.

Line by line

Lines 1 to 4Up and down the house
The refrain comes first: "She is foremost of those that I would hear praised." His restlessness is caught in two gently comic similes, the man "who has published a new book" and the "young girl dressed out in her new gown", both eager for attention.
Lines 5 to 9The talk goes astray
However he turns the talk "by hook or crook", it slides away. One woman talks of "some new tale she had read"; a man answers "confusedly in a half dream", thinking of "some other name". Her name will not stay in anyone's mouth.
Lines 10 to 14Looking for a beggar
The refrain returns, and with it a change of plan. He will "talk no more of books or the long war", but walk by the "dry thorn" until he finds a beggar sheltering from the wind, and "Manage the talk until her name come round".
Lines 15 to 18Praised by the poor
"If there be rags enough" is wry: the poorer the man, the surer the praise. In the old days she had "young men's praise and old men's blame", but among the poor "both old and young gave her praise", and he trusts that memory to last.

Themes

Fame and forgetting

The poem is about the fading of a reputation. In fashionable company her name no longer comes easily; people talk of new tales and other names. The poet feels this as a small injustice and goes looking for the people who still remember, confident that among the poor her name will bring pleasure.

Rich and poor

The poem sets drawing-room talk against the roadside. The educated company is distracted and "confusedly in a half dream"; the beggar by the "dry thorn" will be "well pleased remembering". Yeats suggests that the truest judgement of her lies with those she helped, not with polite society.

Context

The poem was collected in The Wild Swans at Coole, published by the Cuala Press in 1917, where it sits among several poems usually read as being about Maud Gonne, the woman Yeats loved for most of his life. The woman here is not named, but she is usually identified as Maud Gonne. "The long war" is the First World War, still being fought when the book appeared.

The closing lines are usually connected with Maud Gonne's work in the 1890s for evicted tenants and the hungry in the west of Ireland, which won her a lasting affection among the poor even when her politics drew "old men's blame".

Form

A single eighteen-line stanza of long, loose lines of five or six beats, framed by the refrain "She is foremost of those that I would hear praised", which opens the poem and returns at line 10. Rhymes are mostly alternate ("down" and "gown", "book" and "crook", "name" and "blame"), and the last line ends on "praise", just as the first ends on "praised".