The Chambermaid's First Song
About the text
Yeats first published this poem in 1938. It is out of copyright in Ireland and the EU, but in the United States it stays in copyright until the start of 2034, 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 2034.
It begins: How came this ranger
In brief
SummaryA chambermaid watches over the lover who slept with her unknowingly.
The chambermaid of "The Three Bushes" speaks over the man sleeping on her breast. She wonders how this wanderer came to lie with her, two strangers together in the dark. There is nothing left to sigh for now that strange night has come. God's love has hidden him from harm, and pleasure has left him as weak as a worm. The tone mixes tenderness, wonder and a touch of amused realism.
Lines to remember
Weak as a worm.
Line by line
Lines 1 to 4Stranger with stranger
She asks how this roving man came to rest on her cold breast, a stranger with a stranger. He does not know who she is, and she hardly knows him, which makes the intimacy strange.
Lines 5 to 10Weak as a worm
Night has come and there is nothing left to long for. She sees him as sheltered by God's love, out of all harm. The last lines bring things down to earth: pleasure has left him as weak as a worm.
Themes
Love in disguise
In the ballad this song belongs to, the lover believes he is with the lady, so he and the chambermaid are truly "stranger with stranger". The song gives the substitute a voice of her own, and her feelings are tender and watchful, not merely a servant's duty.
Body and blessing
She joins the spiritual and the physical without embarrassment: God's love hides him from harm, and pleasure has made him weak. The worm image is comic and frank, yet the song is also a kind of blessing over the sleeper.
Context
The poem was first published in New Poems (Cuala Press, Dublin, May 1938). It belongs to the group around "The Three Bushes", a ballad in which a lady, to keep both her chastity and her lover, sends her chambermaid to his bed in the dark in her place. The songs that follow give the lady, the lover and the chambermaid their own voices; this is the first of the chambermaid's two.
Form
Ten very short lines of two beats, rhyming on alternate lines: "ranger" and "stranger", "rest" and "breast", then looser chimes such as "come", "harm" and "worm". The quick, light lines suit a whispered song over a sleeper.