Reconciliation

W. B. Yeatsfirst published 1910from The Green Helmet and Other Poems12 lines

Some may have blamed you that you took awayThe verses that could move them on the dayWhen, the ears being deafened, the sight of the eyes blindWith lightning you went from me, and I could findNothing to make a song about but kings,Helmets, and swords, and half-forgotten thingsThat were like memories of you⁠—but nowWe’ll out, for the world lives as long ago;And while we’re in our laughing, weeping fit,Hurl helmets, crowns, and swords into the pit.But, dear, cling close to me; since you were gone,My barren thoughts have chilled me to the bone.

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

In brief

Summary

A poet welcomes back a lost love who took his true subject away.

The poet speaks to the woman he loves. When she left him, suddenly and blindingly, "With lightning", she took away the kind of verse that once moved people, and he was left writing only of kings, helmets and swords, old heroic things that were really memories of her. Now they are reconciled, and he calls for them to throw the helmets, crowns and swords "into the pit" in a "laughing, weeping fit". The last two lines drop the celebration for plain need: "dear, cling close to me", because his thoughts have been "barren" and cold without her.

Lines to remember

Hurl helmets, crowns, and swords into the pit.

My barren thoughts have chilled me to the bone.

Line by line

Lines 1 to 7What her going cost
Some people blamed her, he says, for taking away the poems that once moved them. When she "went from me", it was like lightning that deafened and blinded him, and he could find "Nothing to make a song about but kings" and swords, half-forgotten things that were secretly "like memories of you".
Lines 8 to 10Out into the world
With "but now" at the end of line 7, the poem turns. "We'll out, for the world lives as long ago": life is as it used to be. In their "laughing, weeping fit" they will "Hurl helmets, crowns, and swords into the pit", throwing away the heroic props he used in her absence.
Lines 11 to 12Cling close
The tone drops to a whisper: "But, dear, cling close to me". Since she left, "My barren thoughts have chilled me to the bone". After the grand gesture, the poem ends on loneliness and the plain wish for warmth.

Themes

Love and loss

The poem moves from separation to reunion without pretending the damage is gone. Her leaving struck "With lightning", and her absence left his thoughts "barren". The last line admits that the cold has reached "the bone", so the reconciliation is urgent and fragile rather than triumphant.

Poetry's subject

Without her, he found "Nothing to make a song about but kings", helmets and swords, the heroic stuff of legend. The poem suggests those subjects were only substitutes, "like memories of you". Throwing "helmets, crowns, and swords into the pit" is a vow to return to the living, personal subject that makes his verse "move" people.

Context

The poem was published in The Green Helmet and Other Poems (Cuala Press, 1910). The "you" is Maud Gonne, whom Yeats loved for most of his life. Her marriage to John MacBride in 1903 struck him hard, and the "lightning" of her going is usually read as that blow. The marriage soon broke down, and by the time of this book the two had renewed their close friendship. The kings, helmets and swords recall the heroic Irish legends of his plays in those years, including The Green Helmet, which gave the book its title.

Form

Twelve lines of iambic pentameter in rhymed couplets ("away" and "day", "blind" and "find", "kings" and "things"). The first sentence runs over seven lines and breaks off with a dash at "but now", and the couplets that follow are short and decisive. The final couplet's near-rhyme, "gone" and "bone", ends the poem slightly off balance.