The Tower

W. B. Yeatsfirst published 1927from The Tower195 lines

I

What shall I do with this absurdity⁠—O heart, O troubled heart⁠—this caricature,Decrepit age that has been tied to meAs to a dog’s tail?Never had I moreExcited, passionate, fantasticalImagination, nor an ear and eyeThat more expected the impossible⁠—No, not in boyhood when with rod and fly,Or the humbler worm, I climbed Ben Bulben’s backAnd had the livelong summer day to spend.It seems that I must bid the Muse go pack,Choose Plato and Plotinus for a friendUntil imagination, ear and eye,Can be content with argument and dealIn abstract things; or be derided byA sort of battered kettle at the heel.

II¹

I pace upon the battlements and stareOn the foundations of a house, or whereTree, like a sooty finger, starts from the earth;And send imagination forthUnder the day’s declining beam, and callImages and memoriesFrom ruin or from ancient trees,For I would ask a question of them all.

Beyond that ridge lived Mrs. French, and onceWhen every silver candlestick or sconceLit up the dark mahogany and the wine,A serving man that could divineThat most respected lady’s every wish,Ran and with the garden shearsClipped an insolent farmer’s earsAnd brought them in a little covered dish.

Some few remembered still when I was youngA peasant girl commended by a song,Who’d lived somewhere upon that rocky place,And praised the colour of her face,And had the greater joy in praising her,Remembering that, if walked she there,Farmers jostled at the fairSo great a glory did the song confer.

And certain men, being maddened by those rhymes,Or else by toasting her a score of times,Rose from the table and declared it rightTo test their fancy by their sight;But they mistook the brightness of the moonFor the prosaic light of day⁠—Music had driven their wits astray⁠—And one was drowned in the great bog of Cloone.

Strange, but the man who made the song was blind,Yet, now I have considered it, I findThat nothing strange; the tragedy beganWith Homer that was a blind man,And Helen has all living hearts betrayed.O may the moon and sunlight seemOne inextricable beam,For if I triumph I must make men mad.

And I myself created HanrahanAnd drove him drunk or sober through the dawnFrom somewhere in the neighbouring cottages.Caught by an old man’s juggleriesHe stumbled, tumbled, fumbled to and froAnd had but broken knees for hireAnd horrible splendour of desire;I thought it all out twenty years ago:

Good fellows shuffled cards in an old bawn;And when that ancient ruffian’s turn was onHe so bewitched the cards under his thumbThat all, but the one card, becameA pack of hounds and not a pack of cards,And that he changed into a hare.Hanrahan rose in frenzy thereAnd followed up those baying creatures towards⁠—

O towards I have forgotten what⁠—enough!I must recall a man that neither loveNor music nor an enemy’s clipped earCould, he was so harried, cheer;A figure that has grown so fabulousThere’s not a neighbour left to sayWhen he finished his dog’s day:An ancient bankrupt master of this house.

Before that ruin came, for centuries,Rough men-at-arms, cross-gartered to the kneesOr shod in iron, climbed the narrow stairs,And certain men-at-arms there wereWhose images, in the Great Memory stored,Come with loud cry and panting breastTo break upon a sleeper’s restWhile their great wooden dice beat on the board.

As I would question all, come all who can;Come old, necessitous, half-mounted man;And bring beauty’s blind rambling celebrant;The red man the juggler sentThrough God-forsaken meadows; Mrs. French,Gifted with so fine an ear;The man drowned in a bog’s mire,When mocking muses chose the country wench.

Did all old men and women, rich and poor,Who trod upon these rocks or passed this door,Whether in public or in secret rageAs I do now against old age?But I have found an answer in those eyesThat are impatient to be gone;Go therefore; but leave HanrahanFor I need all his mighty memories.

Old lecher with a love on every windBring up out of that deep considering mindAll that you have discovered in the grave,For it is certain that you haveReckoned up every unforeknown, unseeingPlunge, lured by a softening eye,Or by a touch or a sigh,Into the labyrinth of another’s being;

Does the imagination dwell the mostUpon a woman won or woman lost?If on the lost, admit you turned asideFrom a great labyrinth out of pride,Cowardice, some silly over-subtle thoughtOr anything called conscience once;And that if memory recur, the sun’sUnder eclipse and the day blotted out.

III²

It is time that I wrote my will;I choose upstanding men,That climb the streams untilThe fountain leap, and at dawnDrop their cast at the sideOf dripping stone; I declareThey shall inherit my pride,The pride of people that wereBound neither to Cause nor to State,Neither to slaves that were spat on,Nor to the tyrants that spat,The people of Burke and of GrattanThat gave, though free to refuse⁠—Pride, like that of the morn,When the headlong light is loose,Or that of the fabulous horn,Or that of the sudden showerWhen all streams are dry,Or that of the hourWhen the swan must fix his eyeUpon a fading gleam,Float out upon a longLast reach of glittering streamAnd there sing his last song.And I declare my faith;I mock Plotinus’ thoughtAnd cry in Plato’s teeth,Death and life were notTill man made up the whole,Made lock, stock and barrelOut of his bitter soul,Aye, sun and moon and star, all,And further add to thatThat, being dead, we rise,Dream and so createTranslunar Paradise.I have prepared my peaceWith learned Italian thingsAnd the proud stones of Greece,Poet’s imaginingsAnd memories of love,Memories of the words of women,All those things whereofMan makes a superhuman,Mirror-resembling dream.

As at the loophole there,The daws chatter and scream,And drop twigs layer upon layer.When they have mounted up,The mother bird will restOn their hollow top,And so warm her wild nest.

I leave both faith and prideTo young upstanding menClimbing the mountain side,That under bursting dawnThey may drop a fly;Being of that metal madeTill it was broken byThis sedentary trade.

Now shall I make my soulCompelling it to studyIn a learned schoolTill the wreck of body,Slow decay of blood,Testy deliriumOr dull decrepitude,Or what worse evil come⁠—The death of friends, or deathOf every brilliant eyeThat made a catch in the breath⁠—Seem but the clouds of the skyWhen the horizon fades;Or a bird’s sleepy cryAmong the deepening shades.

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

In brief

Summary

An old poet rages at age, calls up ghosts, and writes his will.

The poem is in three parts. In the first the speaker rages at the "Decrepit age" tied to him like a kettle to a dog's tail, when his imagination has never been wilder; perhaps he must give up poetry for philosophy. In the second he paces the battlements of his tower at evening and summons the ghosts and legends of the district: Mrs French and her servant's grisly gift, a peasant beauty and the blind poet who praised her, his own creation Red Hanrahan, a bankrupt former owner, old soldiers at dice. He asks whether they too raged against old age, then keeps Hanrahan back to ask about love won and lost. In the third part he writes his will. He leaves his pride to young fishermen, declares that man made death and life "Out of his bitter soul", and resolves to school his soul until the worst losses of age seem as light as clouds or "a bird's sleepy cry".

Lines to remember

What shall I do with this absurdity

Decrepit age that has been tied to me

Translunar Paradise.

Line by line

Lines 1 to 16Tied to old age
Part I opens with an outburst. Age is an "absurdity", a "caricature", a "battered kettle at the heel", while his imagination is more "fantastical" than when he fished on "Ben Bulben's back" as a boy. Perhaps he must "bid the Muse go pack" and settle for the abstract comfort of Plato and Plotinus.
Lines 17 to 24On the battlements
In part II he paces the top of the tower at sunset and sends his imagination out over ruins and old trees, calling up "Images and memories". He has "a question" for them all, but holds it back, so the ghosts arrive one by one before we learn what it is.
Lines 25 to 32Mrs French
The first story is from the eighteenth century. At Mrs French's candlelit table, a servant so eager that he could "divine" her every wish went out with the garden shears, clipped an insolent farmer's ears, and "brought them in a little covered dish". The horror is told as polished gossip.
Lines 33 to 56Beauty, song and madness
A peasant girl was so praised in a song that farmers jostled to see her at the fair. Men maddened by the rhymes set out by moonlight, and one "was drowned in the great bog of Cloone". The singer was blind, which leads him to Homer and Helen, and to a startling wish: "For if I triumph I must make men mad."
Lines 57 to 72Red Hanrahan
Now he recalls a character of his own making, Hanrahan, driven "drunk or sober through the dawn". In an old bawn a juggler turns a pack of cards into "A pack of hounds" and one card into a hare, and Hanrahan follows in a frenzy. The stanza breaks off in mid-chase on "towards".
Lines 73 to 88Ghosts of the house
He cuts himself off ("enough!") and turns to the tower's own ghosts: an "ancient bankrupt master of this house" whom nothing could cheer, and the men-at-arms who once climbed its narrow stairs. Their images, stored in "the Great Memory", still wake sleepers with the beat of their wooden dice.
Lines 89 to 104The question
He summons them all together and at last asks his question: did every old man and woman who "trod upon these rocks" rage against age as he does? He reads the answer in their eyes, "impatient to be gone", and dismisses them, but keeps Hanrahan for "his mighty memories".
Lines 105 to 120Love won or lost
Hanrahan, the "Old lecher", knows all about the plunge "Into the labyrinth of another's being". The poet asks whether imagination dwells more on "a woman won or woman lost". If lost, it was pride, cowardice or conscience that turned him aside, and the memory puts the sun "Under eclipse".
Lines 121 to 144Pride for an heir
Part III begins: "It is time that I wrote my will". He leaves his pride to young fishermen who climb the streams at dawn. It is the pride of the Anglo-Irish tradition, "The people of Burke and of Grattan", and of the morning, the sudden shower and the dying swan singing "his last song".
Lines 145 to 165A declaration of faith
He mocks Plotinus and cries "in Plato's teeth" that man made up death and life, "sun and moon and star", "Out of his bitter soul", and that the dead dream and so create "Translunar Paradise". He has made his peace with Italian art, Greek stones, poems and "memories of love".
Lines 166 to 180The jackdaws' nest
A small image breaks in: jackdaws at the tower's loophole drop twig on twig until the mother bird can warm her nest. Then he repeats the bequest, faith and pride to young men "Climbing the mountain side", as he once did before "This sedentary trade" broke him.
Lines 181 to 195Making the soul
The poem ends in resolve. He will send his soul to "a learned school" until bodily wreck, "Testy delirium" and even the death of friends seem no heavier than clouds when the horizon fades, or "a bird's sleepy cry" in the gathering dark.

Themes

Old age

The poem begins in fury at the gap between a failing body and a mind that "more expected the impossible" than ever. Age is grotesque, a "caricature" and a kettle tied to a dog's tail. The question he puts to the ghosts is whether others raged "As I do now against old age". By the end rage gives way to a plan: to train the soul until decay and loss seem as slight as "the clouds of the sky".

Imagination and memory

Part II shows imagination at work. From the tower he summons stories of the district, Mrs French, the beauty in the song, Hanrahan, the dicing soldiers, until legend and his own inventions mix. "I myself created Hanrahan" admits that the poet adds to the Great Memory he draws on. The question about "a woman won or woman lost" turns that power on his own life.

Pride and legacy

The will in part III passes on pride, not property. It is a pride "Bound neither to Cause nor to State", linked to Burke and Grattan and to images of dawn, sudden rain and the swan's last song. The heirs are "upstanding men" who fish mountain streams. The jackdaws building their nest layer by layer suggest the slow way a tradition is made and handed on.

Context

Yeats's own note says the poem was written at Thoor Ballylee, the fifteenth-century tower house near Gort which he bought for 35 pounds in 1917 and used as a summer home until 1929, and that its people are "associated by legend, story and tradition" with the neighbourhood. It first appeared in a book in October Blast (Cuala Press, 1927), then gave its title to The Tower (Macmillan, 1928), whose cover by Thomas Sturge Moore shows the tower.

The note names the peasant beauty and the blind poet as Mary Hynes and Raftery, says the drowning in Cloone bog is recorded in his Celtic Twilight, and that Hanrahan's hare and hounds come from his Stories of Red Hanrahan. Mrs French lived at Peterswell in the eighteenth century, and the ghosts at dice were seen "in what is now my bedroom". He added that the swan passage unconsciously echoes Sturge Moore's poem "Dying Swan".

Yeats turned sixty in 1925. He had won the Nobel Prize in 1923 and was a senator of the Irish Free State, yet the poem shows him fighting age with a harder, plainer style. Edmund Burke and Henry Grattan were eighteenth-century Irish statesmen he claimed as ancestors of that independent pride.

Form

Three parts in three forms. Part I is sixteen pentameter lines rhymed ABAB. Part II has thirteen eight-line stanzas mixing long and short lines, rhymed AABBCDDC. Part III switches to short three-beat lines, loosely rhymed in alternate lines, running on in long sentences. The move from the heavy lines of rage to the brisk, light lines of the will mirrors his change of mood.

Yeats's own note

The persons mentioned are associated by legend, story and tradition with the neighbourhood of Thoor Ballylee or Ballylee Castle, where the poem was written. Mrs. French lived at Peterswell in the eighteenth century and was related to Sir Jonah Barrington, who described the incident of the ear and the trouble that came of it. The peasant beauty and the blind poet are Mary Hynes and Raftery, and the incident of the man drowned in Cloone Bog is recorded in my Celtic Twilight. Hanrahan’s pursuit of the phantom hare and hounds is from my Stories of Red Hanrahan. The ghosts have been seen at their game of dice in what is now my bedroom, and the old bankrupt man lived about a hundred years ago. According to one legend he could only leave the Castle upon a Sunday because of his creditors, and according to another he hid in the secret passage.

In the passage about the Swan I have unconsciously echoed one of the loveliest lyrics of our time⁠—Mr. Sturge Moore’s “Dying Swan.” I often recited it during an American lecturing tour, which explains the theft.

When I wrote the lines about Plato and Plotinus I forgot that it is something in our own eyes that makes us see them as all transcendence. Has not Plotinus written: “Let every soul recall, then, at the outset the truth that soul is the author of all living things, that it has breathed the life into them all, whatever is nourished by earth and sea, all the creatures of the air, the divine stars in the sky; it is the maker of the sun; itself formed and ordered this vast heaven and conducts all that rhythmic motion⁠—and it is a principle distinct from all these to which it gives law and movement and life, and it must of necessity be more honourable than they, for they gather or dissolve as soul brings them life or abandons them, but soul, since it never can abandon itself, is of eternal being.”