Long-legged Fly
About the text
Yeats first published this poem in 1939. It is out of copyright in Ireland and the EU, but in the United States it stays in copyright until the start of 2035, and this site is served partly from American servers. So for now we give the notes without the full text; it will appear here in 2035.
It begins: That civilisation may not sink
In brief
SummaryGreat minds at work in silence: Caesar, Helen of Troy and Michelangelo.
Three scenes of a mind at the moment of deep concentration, each closed by the same refrain. Julius Caesar sits in his tent over the maps, eyes fixed on nothing, while the camp is told to keep quiet so that civilisation will not sink. A girl who will become Helen of Troy, whose face will burn the topless towers, practises a street dance when she thinks nobody is looking. Michelangelo lies on the scaffolding in the Pope's chapel, painting the Adam that will stir the thoughts of young girls. Each time, like a long-legged fly on the surface of a stream, the mind moves upon silence.
Lines to remember
Like a long-legged fly upon the stream
His mind moves upon silence.
Line by line
Lines 1 to 10Caesar in his tent
So that civilisation may not sink and its great battle be lost, the speaker orders quiet: silence the dog, tether the pony far off. Caesar is in his tent with the maps spread, eyes fixed on nothing, his head on his hand. The refrain likens his mind to a long-legged fly moving over a stream, resting on silence.
Lines 11 to 20The future Helen
So that the topless towers of Troy may burn and men remember that face, move gently in this lonely place. The girl, part woman and three parts child, thinks nobody is watching, and her feet practise a tinker's shuffle picked up on the street. World-changing beauty begins in private play.
Lines 21 to 30Michelangelo on the scaffold
So that girls at puberty may find the first Adam in their thoughts, shut the door of the Pope's chapel and keep the children out. Michelangelo reclines on the scaffolding, his hand moving to and fro as quietly as mice. The refrain returns to close the poem.
Themes
Creative concentration
Each stanza catches a genius in the silent moment before or during a great act: the general planning, the girl rehearsing, the painter at work. Nothing dramatic happens on the surface. The refrain's image of a fly moving on water catches the lightness and poise of a mind absorbed, working without breaking the stillness.
Silence
Every stanza contains an order to protect quiet: quiet the dog, move gently, shut the door. The speaker is like a guard outside a room. The poem suggests that history's great turns, in war, beauty and art, are born in stillness, and that the rest of us must keep silent to let them happen.
History and the individual
Each stanza opens with "That", a purpose clause: so that civilisation survives, so that Troy burns, so that the young find Adam in their minds. Vast consequences hang on one person's private moment. Yeats's history is made by individual minds, not by crowds or forces, and it can be war, beauty or art.
Context
The poem was first published in Last Poems and Two Plays (Cuala Press, Dublin, 1939), after Yeats's death. It is one of several last poems about genius and the conditions it needs. The long-legged fly is the pond-skater or water-strider, an insect that rests on the surface film of still water, so the mind is pictured balanced on silence without breaking it.
The three figures are Julius Caesar, the Roman general; Helen of Troy, whose face in Marlowe's Doctor Faustus "burnt the topless towers of Ilium"; and Michelangelo, who painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, including the Creation of Adam. Yeats praised the same Adam in section IV of "Under Ben Bulben".
Form
Three ten-line stanzas built on the same plan: a purpose clause, a command to keep quiet, a picture of the figure at work, and the same two-line refrain. The lines are short and loosely rhymed on alternate lines. The repeated structure makes the poem feel like a ritual, and the refrain slows every stanza to stillness.
