The Cap and Bells

W. B. Yeatsfirst published 1899from The Wind Among the Reeds36 lines

The jester walked in the garden:The garden had fallen still;He bade his soul rise upwardAnd stand on her window-sill.

It rose in a straight blue garment,When owls began to call:It had grown wise-tongued by thinkingOf a quiet and light footfall;

But the young queen would not listen;She rose in her pale night gown;She drew in the heavy casementAnd pushed the latches down.

He bade his heart go to her,When the owls called out no more;In a red and quivering garmentIt sang to her through the door.

It had grown sweet-tongued by dreaming,Of a flutter of flower-like hair;But she took up her fan from the tableAnd waved it off on the air.

“I have cap and bells,” he pondered,“I will send them to her and die”;And when the morning whitenedHe left them where she went by.

She laid them upon her bosom,Under a cloud of her hair,And her red lips sang them a love-song:Till stars grew out of the air.

She opened her door and her window,And the heart and the soul came through,To her right hand came the red one,To her left hand came the blue.

They set up a noise like crickets,A chattering wise and sweet,And her hair was a folded flowerAnd the quiet of love in her feet.

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

In brief

Summary

A jester wins a young queen's love by giving her his cap and bells.

A jester sends his soul, dressed in blue, to the young queen's window-sill, but she shuts her casement. He sends his heart, dressed in red, to sing at her door, but she waves it away with her fan. Then he decides to give her his cap and bells and die, and leaves them where she will pass. She lays them on her bosom and sings to them, and at last opens her door and window. Heart and soul come in, chattering like crickets, and she is at peace in love. Told like a fairy tale, the poem is a strange story of love won by giving everything away.

Lines to remember

The jester walked in the garden:

And the quiet of love in her feet.

Line by line

Lines 1 to 8The soul at the window
In the stilled garden the jester "bade his soul rise upward" to her window-sill. It rose "in a straight blue garment" as the owls began to call, grown "wise-tongued" by thinking of her light footstep.
Lines 9 to 12The closed casement
The queen "would not listen". She rises in her "pale night gown", draws in the casement and pushes the latches down: a run of small, final actions, each given its own line.
Lines 13 to 20The heart at the door
Now the jester sends his heart, "In a red and quivering garment", to sing through her door. It has grown "sweet-tongued by dreaming" of her hair. She takes up her fan and waves it off "on the air", as lightly as brushing away a moth.
Lines 21 to 24The cap and bells
The only speech in the poem is the jester's thought: he has cap and bells, and "I will send them to her and die". At dawn, "when the morning whitened", he leaves them where she will pass. He gives up the badge of his whole life.
Lines 25 to 28The love-song
She lays the cap and bells on her bosom, "Under a cloud of her hair", and her red lips sing to them "Till stars grew out of the air". What soul and heart could not win, the humble gift wins.
Lines 29 to 36Heart and soul come in
She opens door and window, and heart and soul come through, the red one to her right hand, the blue to her left. They chatter "like crickets", "wise and sweet", and the poem ends in stillness, with "the quiet of love in her feet".

Themes

Love and sacrifice

The jester's soul and heart are refused, but when he gives up his cap and bells, meaning to die, the queen's love opens. The gift that works is the one that costs everything: his trade, his self, his life. Love answers not eloquence but complete surrender.

Soul and heart

The poem divides the lover in two: the soul, blue and "wise-tongued", and the heart, red and "sweet-tongued". Each tries alone and fails. At the end both come in together, one to each hand, "A chattering wise and sweet". Love needs wisdom and passion joined.

Fairy tale and symbol

The story follows the patterns of a folk tale: a jester and a queen, a garden, owls, dawn, and three attempts of which only the last succeeds. Its colours and objects feel symbolic rather than realistic, and the poem never explains them, so it is felt like a dream remembered on waking.

Context

The poem was collected in The Wind Among the Reeds (Elkin Mathews, London, 1899). It stands apart from the book's short lyrics of longing as a complete story, and one of the few in the collection in which love is finally returned.

The cap and bells, the fool's traditional costume, stand for the jester's whole self and trade. The poem has often been read alongside Yeats's long, unreturned love for Maud Gonne, but it names no one, and its meaning is left open.

Form

Nine quatrains of three-beat lines, rhymed only on the second and fourth lines ("still" and "window-sill", "call" and "footfall"). The plain ballad shape and simple sentences, many lines beginning "And" or "She", tell the story in the manner of a folk song, while the pattern of sending and refusing shapes it like a fairy tale.