The Double Vision of Michael Robartes

W. B. Yeatsfirst published 1919from The Wild Swans at Coole68 lines

I

On the grey rock of Cashel the mind’s eyeHas called up the cold spirits that are bornWhen the old moon is vanished from the skyAnd the new still hides her horn.

Under blank eyes and fingers never stillThe particular is pounded till it is man,When had I my own will?Oh, not since life began.

Constrained, arraigned, baffled, bent and unbentBy these wire-jointed jaws and limbs of wood,Themselves obedient,Knowing not evil and good;

Obedient to some hidden magical breath.They do not even feel, so abstract are they,So dead beyond our death,Triumph that we obey.

II

On the grey rock of Cashel I suddenly sawA Sphinx with woman breast and lion paw,A Buddha, hand at rest,Hand lifted up that blest;

And right between these two a girl at playThat it may be had danced her life away,For now being dead it seemedThat she of dancing dreamed.

Although I saw it all in the mind’s eyeThere can be nothing solider till I die;I saw by the moon’s lightNow at its fifteenth night.

One lashed her tail; her eyes lit by the moonGazed upon all things known, all things unknown,In triumph of intellectWith motionless head erect.

That other’s moonlit eyeballs never moved,Being fixed on all things loved, all things unloved,Yet little peace he hadFor those that love are sad.

Oh, little did they care who danced between,And little she by whom her dance was seenSo that she danced. No thought,Body perfection brought,

For what but eye and ear silence the mindWith the minute particulars of mankind?Mind moved yet seemed to stopAs ’twere a spinning-top.

In contemplation had those three so wroughtUpon a moment, and so stretched it outThat they, time overthrown,Were dead yet flesh and bone.

III

I knew that I had seen, had seen at lastThat girl my unremembering nights hold fastOr else my dreams that fly,If I should rub an eye,

And yet in flying fling into my meatA crazy juice that makes the pulses beatAs though I had been undoneBy Homer’s Paragon

Who never gave the burning town a thought;To such a pitch of folly I am brought,Being caught between the pullOf the dark moon and the full,

The commonness of thought and imagesThat have the frenzy of our Western seas.Thereon I made my moan,And after kissed a stone,

And after that arranged it in a songSeeing that I, ignorant for so long,Had been rewarded thusIn Cormac’s ruined house.

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

In brief

Summary

On the Rock of Cashel, Robartes has visions under dark and full moons.

Michael Robartes, Yeats's invented mystic, has two visions on the Rock of Cashel. In the first, under the dark of the moon, he sees cold spirits like puppets, with "wire-jointed jaws and limbs of wood", who pound the human particular into shape and leave no one a will of his own. In the second, by the light of the full moon, he sees a Sphinx and a Buddha, figures of intellect and of love, and between them a girl dancing. She dances without thought, and in that moment all three seem to overthrow time, "dead yet flesh and bone". In the third part Robartes recognises the girl as the one his dreams have always held, feels the madness of desire "caught between the pull / Of the dark moon and the full", kisses a stone and makes the whole experience into a song in "Cormac's ruined house".

Lines to remember

On the grey rock of Cashel the mind's eye

For those that love are sad.

Were dead yet flesh and bone.

Line by line

Lines 1 to 4The dark of the moon
On "the grey rock of Cashel" the "mind's eye" calls up "cold spirits". They belong to the moonless night between the old moon and the new, when the new moon "still hides her horn".
Lines 5 to 8Pounded into shape
Under their "blank eyes and fingers never still", the individual, "The particular", is "pounded till it is man". The speaker asks when he ever had his own will and answers bleakly: "Oh, not since life began."
Lines 9 to 16Puppet masters
Human beings are "Constrained, arraigned, baffled, bent and unbent" by puppet-like spirits with "wire-jointed jaws and limbs of wood". The spirits are themselves obedient to "some hidden magical breath", knowing neither good nor evil, and they feel nothing, not even triumph that "we obey".
Lines 17 to 24Sphinx, Buddha and girl
The second vision comes "suddenly": a Sphinx "with woman breast and lion paw", a Buddha with one hand at rest and one raised in blessing, and "right between these two a girl at play". She seems to be dead and dreaming of dancing, as if she "had danced her life away".
Lines 25 to 28The full moon
Although it is all seen "in the mind's eye", nothing could be more solid. The light is the moon "at its fifteenth night", the full moon, the opposite of the moonless dark of the first part.
Lines 29 to 36Intellect and love
The Sphinx gazes on "all things known, all things unknown" in "triumph of intellect". The Buddha's eyes are fixed on "all things loved, all things unloved", but he has little peace, "For those that love are sad." The two gazes are carefully balanced, line against line.
Lines 37 to 44The dance
Neither figure cares about the dancer, and she cares only that she dances. "No thought, / Body perfection brought": her perfection comes through the body, not the mind. The mind moves so fast it seems still, "As 'twere a spinning-top."
Lines 45 to 48Time overthrown
The three are so absorbed in contemplation that they stretch a single moment out. With "time overthrown", they are "dead yet flesh and bone", outside time and still bodily present.
Lines 49 to 56The girl of his dreams
Robartes knows he has "seen at last" the girl his "unremembering nights hold fast". The dream fills him with "A crazy juice that makes the pulses beat", as though he had been undone by "Homer's Paragon", Helen of Troy.
Lines 57 to 64Between two moons
Helen "never gave the burning town a thought", and he feels the same folly. He is caught "between the pull / Of the dark moon and the full", between the two visions. He makes his moan and then, strangely, kisses a stone.
Lines 65 to 68Making the song
Last he turns the experience into "a song", grateful that one "ignorant for so long" should be rewarded so. The poem ends where it began, in "Cormac's ruined house" on the Rock of Cashel.

Themes

Vision

Everything is seen "in the mind's eye", yet "There can be nothing solider till I die". The poem insists that imagined vision is as real as stone. Its two halves, the dark of the moon and "the moon's light / Now at its fifteenth night", give opposite pictures of human life.

Freedom and control

The first vision is of total control: people "bent and unbent" by puppets which obey something else again. "When had I my own will? / Oh, not since life began." The second vision answers it with a girl who dances simply "So that she danced", free of all thought.

Body and mind

The Sphinx stands for intellect and the Buddha for love, but the dancer between them reaches perfection through the body alone: "No thought, / Body perfection brought". The same idea appears in "Michael Robartes and the Dancer", which follows in the next book.

Desire

Part III turns the vision personal. The girl is one his "unremembering nights hold fast", and seeing her brings "A crazy juice" of desire. Comparing her to Helen, who ignored "the burning town", links beauty with destruction and with folly.

Context

The poem was collected in the enlarged edition of The Wild Swans at Coole, published by Macmillan in 1919, near "The Phases of the Moon", which also features Michael Robartes. Yeats had invented Robartes in his stories of the 1890s, and revived him as a speaker for the moon-phase system he was building with his wife.

The Rock of Cashel in County Tipperary is a limestone outcrop crowned by medieval church ruins, once the seat of the kings of Munster. "Cormac's ruined house" is Cormac's Chapel, built there in the twelfth century by Cormac Mac Carthaigh, king of Munster.

Form

Three numbered parts of four-line stanzas. In each stanza two long lines of five beats are followed by two short lines of three. Part I rhymes alternately ("eye", "born", "sky", "horn"); Parts II and III rhyme in couplets ("saw", "paw", "rest", "blest"). The short lines fall like steps, slowing the vision to a trance.