His Dream

W. B. Yeatsfirst published 1910from The Green Helmet and Other Poems20 lines

I swayed upon the gaudy sternThe butt end of a steering oar,And everywhere that I could turnA crowd upon a shore.

And though I would have hushed the crowdThere was no mother’s son but said,“What is the figure in a shroudUpon a gaudy bed?”

And after running at the brimCried out upon that thing beneath,—It had such dignity of limb⁠—By the sweet name of Death.

Though I’d my finger on my lip,What could I but take up the song?And fish and crowd and gaudy shipCried out the whole night long,

Crying amid the glittering sea,Naming it with ecstatic breath,Because it had such dignityBy the sweet name of Death.

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

In brief

Summary

In a dream, a steersman joins a crowd hailing a shrouded corpse as Death.

The poet describes a dream. He stands at the steering oar of a brightly painted ship, with a crowd on every shore. On the ship lies a figure in a shroud on a "gaudy bed", and everyone asks what it is. Though he wants to hush them, the crowd runs along the water's edge calling it "By the sweet name of Death". Against his own wish he takes up the song, and soon the fish, the crowd and the ship itself are crying out all night, praising Death with "ecstatic breath" because of the figure's strange dignity.

Lines to remember

What is the figure in a shroud

By the sweet name of Death.

Line by line

Lines 1 to 4At the steering oar
The dreamer leans on the steering oar of a "gaudy stern", and wherever he looks there is "A crowd upon a shore". The word "gaudy", repeated through the poem, makes the scene bright, showy and slightly unreal, like a painted pageant.
Lines 5 to 8The figure in a shroud
He would have "hushed the crowd", but every "mother's son" asks the same question: "What is the figure in a shroud" lying "Upon a gaudy bed?" The shrouded body on its bright bed is the mystery at the centre of the dream.
Lines 9 to 12The sweet name
Running along the water's edge, the crowd cries out to the thing beneath the shroud, which has "such dignity of limb", and names it "By the sweet name of Death". Death is greeted not with fear but with tenderness.
Lines 13 to 16He takes up the song
Though he keeps "my finger on my lip", signalling silence, he cannot help joining in. Then everything sings: "fish and crowd and gaudy ship" cry out "the whole night long". The dream spreads from the people to the whole world around them.
Lines 17 to 20Praising Death
The last stanza echoes the third. Across "the glittering sea" they name the figure "with ecstatic breath", because of its dignity, and the refrain returns: "By the sweet name of Death". The poem ends in rapture rather than mourning.

Themes

Death

The poem makes death beautiful rather than terrible. The shrouded figure has "such dignity of limb", and the crowd greets it with "the sweet name of Death" and "ecstatic breath". It is less a funeral than a festival, and the dreamer, though reluctant, is swept into the celebration.

Dream and the crowd

The speaker is set apart from the crowd: he steers the ship and wants to hush them, finger on lip. But the crowd's cry proves stronger than his wish for silence, and by the end he is singing with them. The poem shows a private dream turning into a shared, overwhelming chant.

Context

The poem was published in The Green Helmet and Other Poems (Cuala Press, 1910), and it stands first among the poems of that book in Yeats's collected editions. The book's style is sparer and more direct than his earlier work. This dream-vision of a ship, a crowd and a shrouded figure is unlike the plain-spoken love poems that follow it, and the title presents it simply as something dreamed.

Form

Five quatrains rhymed abab ("stern", "oar", "turn", "shore"), with three lines of four beats and a shorter closing line of three. The third and fifth stanzas end on the same line, "By the sweet name of Death", which works as a refrain. The brisk, regular rhythm has the movement of a ballad.