The Priest and the Fairy

W. B. Yeatsfrom Early and uncollected poems82 lines

Unto the heart of the woodland straying,Where the shaking leaf with the beam was playing,

Musingly wandered the village priest.As the summer voice of the daytime ceased,

He came to the home of the forest peopleFrom where the old ivy crawls round the old steeple,

And under a shady oak-tree sat,Where the moss was spread like his own doormat.

The tangled thoughts of the finished dayFled from his brow where the hair was grey;

And as the time to darkness plodded,He thought wise things as his grey head nodded.

How “the only good is musing mild,And evil still is action’s child.

“With action all the world is vexed,”He’d find for this some holy text.

He’d slept among the singing trees,Among the murmurs of the bees,

A full hour long, when rose a featherOut of a neighbouring bunch of heather;

And then a pointed face was seenBeneath a pointed cap of green;

And straight before the sleeping priestThere stood a man, of men the least⁠—

Three spans high as he rose to his feet,And his hair was as yellow as waving wheat.

Now, what has a fairy to do with a priestWho is six feet high in his socks at least?

He drew from his cap a feather grey,On the nose of the sleeper he made it play;

The sleeper awoke with a sudden start,With open mouth and beating heart.

He had dreamed the cow had got withinHis garden ringed with jessamine,

And many a purple gillyflower eaten,And under her hoofs the marigolds beaten.

Then ’gan to speak that goblin rare,Brushing back his yellow hair:

“Man of wisdom, from thy sleepingI have roused thee; for the weeping

“Of our great queen is ever heardAmong the haunts of bee and bird.

“We buried late in a hazel dellA fairy whom we loved full well;

“The swiftest he to dance or fly,And his hair was as dark as a plover’s eye.

“Man of wisdom, dost thou knowWhere the souls of fairies go?”

This priest looked neither to right nor left,Nigh of his wits by fear bereft.

“Ave Marie,” muttered heOver the beads of his rosary.

The fairies’ herald spake once more:“Say and thrice anigh thy door

“Every summer wilt thou seeWild bees’ honey laid for thee.”

The father dropt his rosary⁠—“They are lost, they are lost, each one,” cried he.

And then his heart grew well-nigh deadBecause of the thing his tongue had said.

As a wreath of smoke in wind-blown flightThe fairy vanished from his sight,

And came to where his brethren stood,Away in the heart of the antique wood;

And when they heard that tale of hisThey grew so very still, I wis

Were you a fairy you’d have heardThe breathing of the smallest bird,

The beating of a lev’ret’s heart;And then the fay queen sobbed apart,

And all the sad fay chivalryUpraised their voices bitterly.

A woodman on his homeward wayHeard the voice of their dismay,

And said, “Yon bittern cries, in truth,As though his days were full of ruth.

“If I were free to do as littleAs dance upon the spear-grass brittle,

“Or seek where sweetest water bubbles,Remote from all the hard earth troubles,

“And cut no wood the whole day long,I’d glad folks’ hearts with blither song.”

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

In brief

Summary

A fairy asks a village priest where the souls of fairies go.

A village priest wanders into the woods one summer evening and dozes under an oak, content with the thought that the only good is quiet musing and that action breeds evil. A tiny fairy in a pointed green cap wakes him by tickling his nose with a feather. The fairies are mourning one of their own, he explains, and their queen weeps without end: where do the souls of fairies go? He promises wild honey at the priest's door every summer for an answer. The frightened priest blurts out, "They are lost, they are lost, each one", and at once regrets it. The fairy vanishes, and the whole fairy court breaks into grief. The poem ends with a woodman on his way home who hears their cry, takes it for a bird, and wishes he had its carefree life.

Lines to remember

Where the souls of fairies go?

"They are lost, they are lost, each one," cried he.

The beating of a lev'ret's heart;

Line by line

Lines 1 to 8The priest in the wood
The village priest wanders musing into "the heart of the woodland" as the day ends, to "the home of the forest people", and sits under an oak on moss "spread like his own doormat". The homely simile makes him comfortable, a man at ease in a place that belongs to others.
Lines 9 to 16His easy wisdom
As he nods off he thinks "wise things": that "the only good is musing mild", and that evil is always "action's child". He would find a "holy text" to back it up. The gentle mockery matters, because soon a few hasty words of his will do real harm.
Lines 17 to 28The fairy appears
After an hour's sleep among the bees, a feather rises from the heather, then a "pointed face" under a "pointed cap of green". The fairy is "Three spans high", with hair "as yellow as waving wheat", and the narrator comically sets him beside a priest "six feet high in his socks".
Lines 29 to 36A rude awakening
The fairy tickles the sleeper's nose with a grey feather. The priest wakes with a start from a very domestic dream: the cow has got into his garden and trampled the gillyflowers and marigolds. His real worries, the lines suggest, are small and earthly.
Lines 37 to 48The fairy's question
Now the "goblin rare" speaks in solemn, old-fashioned language. The fairy queen weeps without end, because the fairies have just buried a beloved companion "in a hazel dell", the swiftest of them all. Then comes the question at the heart of the poem: he asks the "Man of wisdom" where the souls of fairies go.
Lines 49 to 60The priest's answer
Terrified, the priest mutters "Ave Marie" over his rosary. The fairy offers wild bees' honey at his door every summer for an answer. The priest drops his beads and cries, "They are lost, they are lost, each one", and at once his heart grows "well-nigh dead" at what he has said.
Lines 61 to 72The fairies' grief
The fairy vanishes like "a wreath of smoke" and carries the news back to his people. Their silence is so deep that a fairy could have heard "The beating of a lev'ret's heart". Then the fairy queen sobs, and "all the sad fay chivalry" raise their voices in lament.
Lines 73 to 82The woodman passes
A woodman heading home hears the crying and takes it for a bittern. He envies the bird its supposed freedom to dance on the grass and seek sweet water, far from "the hard earth troubles". The irony is gentle: he thinks the singers carefree at the very moment they are grieving.

Themes

Faith and the fairies

The poem turns on a question that haunts Irish fairy lore: can the fairies be saved? The priest, speaking for the Church, answers that "They are lost, they are lost, each one". Yet the poem's sympathy lies with the fairies, who bury their dead "in a hazel dell" and grieve like any human family. The priest's own regret suggests his doctrine is harsher than his heart.

Thought and action

At the start the priest believes that "the only good is musing mild" and that evil is "action's child". The story tests this. His one act, a few hasty words, brings grief to a whole people, which seems to prove him right; yet his idle musing is also gently mocked, and the woodman at the end longs for a life with no work at all.

Misunderstanding

Again and again the poem shows how little one world understands another. The fairy is solemn where the priest is comic; the priest dreams of cows while the fairies mourn; the woodman hears their lament as a bird's cry and envies the singer. Sorrow is everywhere in the wood, but each creature sees only its own.

Context

This is one of the early poems Yeats later left out of his collections. It reflects his youthful interest in Irish folklore, the same interest that led him to edit Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry in 1888. Its gentle comedy, and its sympathy with the fairies rather than the priest, can be set beside "The Ballad of Father O'Hart" and "The Ballad of Father Gilligan", where Yeats writes about country priests with more warmth.

Form

Eighty-two lines of rhyming couplets, printed as two-line stanzas and divided into three parts: the priest, the meeting, and the woodman. The opening moves in a loose, lilting rhythm with double rhymes ("straying", "playing"); the fairy's speeches are tighter and more formal. The easy jingle keeps the story light until the grief of the ending.