The People

W. B. Yeatsfirst published 1917from The Wild Swans at Coole38 lines

“What have I earned for all that work,” I said,“For all that I have done at my own charge?The daily spite of this unmannerly town,Where who has served the most is most defamed,The reputation of his lifetime lostBetween the night and morning. I might have lived,And you know well how great the longing has been,Where every day my footfall should have litIn the green shadow of Ferrara wall;Or climbed among the images of the past⁠—The unperturbed and courtly images⁠—Evening and morning, the steep street of UrbinoTo where the duchess and her people talkedThe stately midnight through until they stoodIn their great window looking at the dawn;I might have had no friend that could not mixCourtesy and passion into one like thoseThat saw the wicks grow yellow in the dawn;I might have used the one substantial rightMy trade allows: chosen my company,And chosen what scenery had pleased me best.”Thereon my phoenix answered in reproof,“The drunkards, pilferers of public funds,All the dishonest crowd I had driven away,When my luck changed and they dared meet my face,Crawled from obscurity, and set upon meThose I had served and some that I had fed;Yet never have I, now nor any time,Complained of the people.”

All I could replyWas: “You, that have not lived in thought but deed,Can have the purity of a natural force,But I, whose virtues are the definitionsOf the analytic mind, can neither closeThe eye of the mind nor keep my tongue from speech.”And yet, because my heart leaped at her words,I was abashed, and now they come to mindAfter nine years, I sink my head abashed.

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

In brief

Summary

The poet complains of Dublin's ingratitude, and his phoenix rebukes him.

The poet asks what he has earned for all his work: only the daily spite of an "unmannerly town" where those who serve most are most slandered. He might have lived instead in Renaissance Italy, under the walls of Ferrara or up the steep street of Urbino, where a duchess and her friends talked all night until dawn. His "phoenix" answers with a reproof: when her luck changed, crooks and drunkards, and even people she had served and fed, attacked her, yet she has never complained of the people. He replies that she lives by deed and he by thought. But her words shamed him, and nine years later he still bows his head.

Lines to remember

Where who has served the most is most defamed,

Complained of the people.

Can have the purity of a natural force,

Line by line

Lines 1 to 6What have I earned
The poet's complaint is bitter and specific: "The daily spite of this unmannerly town, / Where who has served the most is most defamed". A whole lifetime's reputation can be lost "Between the night and morning".
Lines 7 to 15Ferrara and Urbino
He imagines another life, in the "green shadow of Ferrara wall" or climbing "the steep street of Urbino" among "The unperturbed and courtly images" of the past. There the duchess and her people talked "The stately midnight through" and watched the dawn from their window.
Lines 16 to 21Choosing his company
In that world every friend could "mix / Courtesy and passion into one". He would have used "the one substantial right / My trade allows": to choose his company and his scenery. The line is both a boast about poetry and a wish to escape Dublin.
Lines 22 to 29The phoenix answers
His "phoenix" replies "in reproof": when her luck turned, "drunkards, pilferers of public funds" and even "Those I had served and some that I had fed" set upon her. Yet she has never "Complained of the people", and that short final line lands like a verdict.
Lines 30 to 35Thought and deed
His defence is careful: she has "not lived in thought but deed" and so has "the purity of a natural force". His virtues belong to "the analytic mind", which cannot close "The eye of the mind" or keep quiet.
Lines 36 to 38Still abashed
The ending admits the argument was lost before it was made. His "heart leaped at her words", and he was ashamed. The repetition of "abashed" carries that shame across "nine years" to the present.

Themes

Artist and public

The poet feels his public service has been repaid with spite: "who has served the most is most defamed". His dream of Urbino, where people mixed "Courtesy and passion", shows what he thinks an audience should be. The poem does not dismiss his grievance, but it tests it against someone who suffered more.

Thought and action

The poem sets two kinds of people side by side. She lives "not in thought but deed" and has "the purity of a natural force"; he lives by "the analytic mind" and cannot stop seeing or speaking. His reply is not an excuse so much as a self-portrait, and it concedes her greater nobility.

Shame and admiration

The last lines turn a quarrel into a confession. Because his "heart leaped at her words", he was "abashed". That both reactions happen at once is the poem's candour about love: he admires her most at the moment she proves him small.

Context

The poem was collected in The Wild Swans at Coole, published by the Cuala Press in 1917. The "unmannerly town" is Dublin, where Yeats had been attacked over the Abbey Theatre and other public causes. The "phoenix" is usually read as Maud Gonne, whom he also calls a phoenix in "His Phoenix". Her reproof is usually connected with the hostility she met in Dublin after her marriage to John MacBride broke down.

Ferrara and Urbino were courts of Renaissance Italy that Yeats admired as places where rulers, artists and poets lived together. The talk at Urbino that lasted until dawn is the setting of Castiglione's The Book of the Courtier, where the duchess presides over conversations about the ideal courtier.

Form

Blank verse, unrhymed lines of five beats, laid out as a dialogue: the poet's long speech, the phoenix's shorter reply, and his answer in a second verse paragraph. The poet's speech is one long, winding sentence of what he "might have" done, while the phoenix speaks in plainer, harder lines.