The Poet pleads with the Elemental Powers

W. B. Yeatsfirst published 1899from The Wind Among the Reeds18 lines

Earlier titled "Aedh pleads with the Elemental Powers"

The Powers whose name and shape no living creature knowsHave pulled the Immortal Rose;And though the Seven Lights bowed in their dance and wept,The Polar Dragon slept,His heavy rings uncoiled from glimmering deep to deep:When will he wake from sleep?

Great Powers of falling wave and wind and windy fire,With your harmonious choirEncircle her I love and sing her into peace,That my old care may cease;Unfold your flaming wings and cover out of sightThe nets of day and night.

Dim Powers of drowsy thought, let her no longer beLike the pale cup of the sea,When winds have gathered and sun and moon burned dimAbove its cloudy rim;But let a gentle silence wrought with music flowWhither her footsteps go.

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

In brief

Summary

The poet begs the powers of nature to bring his beloved peace.

The poem opens on a cosmic loss: nameless Powers have "pulled the Immortal Rose", and though the Seven Lights wept, the Polar Dragon slept on. The speaker then turns to the Powers of wave, wind and fire and asks them to surround the woman he loves with music and "sing her into peace", so that his own long care can end. In the last stanza he prays that she will no longer be like a storm-troubled sea, and that "a gentle silence wrought with music" will follow wherever she walks. Behind the grand symbols is a simple wish for her calm.

Lines to remember

Encircle her I love and sing her into peace,

But let a gentle silence wrought with music flow

Line by line

Lines 1 to 6The Rose pulled down
Powers no living creature can name or picture "Have pulled the Immortal Rose". The Seven Lights, probably the stars of the Plough, bow and weep, but "The Polar Dragon slept", coiled "from glimmering deep to deep". The stanza ends on a question: "When will he wake from sleep?"
Lines 7 to 12Wave, wind and fire
He appeals to "Great Powers of falling wave and wind and windy fire" and their "harmonious choir": let them "Encircle her I love and sing her into peace", so that "my old care may cease". He asks them to spread "flaming wings" and hide "The nets of day and night", the snares of time.
Lines 13 to 18Silence and music
The "Dim Powers of drowsy thought" are asked to change her restless nature: she should no longer be "Like the pale cup of the sea" under gathering winds and a dimmed sun and moon. Instead he asks for "a gentle silence wrought with music" to go "Whither her footsteps go".

Themes

Peace for the beloved

The whole invocation is for her sake. Each stanza names Powers and then asks for calm: she is to be sung "into peace", sheltered under wings, and followed by "a gentle silence". The pale, storm-troubled sea is his picture of her restlessness, and his own "old care" will end only when hers does.

Occult symbolism

The Rose, the Seven Lights and the Polar Dragon come from Yeats's study of magic and the stars. Pulling down "the Immortal Rose" suggests that ideal beauty has been lost from the world, while the sleeping Dragon waits to wake, perhaps at the end of time. The poem reads like a ritual, calling spirits by their elements: wave, wind, fire, thought.

Context

First collected in The Wind Among the Reeds (1899) as "Aedh pleads with the Elemental Powers". Aedh was one of the named voices Yeats gave to the love poems in that book; from 1906 the title changed. The poem draws on the ritual magic Yeats was studying in the 1890s as a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

Form

Three six-line stanzas in rhyming couplets, each pairing a long six-beat line with a short three-beat one ("knows" and "Rose", "fire" and "choir", "flow" and "go"). The long lines carry the grand invocations and the short ones fall back like responses. Each stanza opens by naming the Powers, like the steps of a ritual.

Title only: 1899 persona title "Aedh pleads with the Elemental Powers" (Gutenberg 32233) replaced from 1906 (Gutenberg 49608). Check wording against the 1899 text before choosing a version.