The Two Titans

W. B. Yeatsfrom Early and uncollected poems58 lines

A Political Poem

The vision of a rock where lightnings whirl’dBruising the darkness with their crackling light;The waves, enormous wanderers of the world,Beat on it with their hammers day and night.Two figures crouching on the black rock, boundTo one another with a coiling chain;A grey-haired youth, whose cheeks had never found,Or long ere this had lost their ruddy stain;A sibyl, with fierce face as of a houndThat dreams. She moveth, feeling in her brainThe lightnings pulse⁠—behold her, aye behold⁠—Ignoble joy, and more ignoble painCramm’d all her youth; and hates have bought and soldHer spirit. As she moves, the foam-globes burstOver her spotted flesh and flying hairAnd her gigantic limbs. The weary thirstUnquenchable still glows in her dull stare,As round her, slow on feet that have no blood,The phantoms of her faded pleasures walk;And trailing crimson vans, a mumbling brood,Ghosts of her vanished glories, muse and stalkAbout the sea. Before her lies that youth,Worn with long struggles; and the waves have sungTheir passion and their restlessness and ruthThrough his sad soul for ever old and young,Till their fierce miseries within his eyesHave lit lone tapers.Now the night was cast,Making all one o’er rock and sea and skies;And when once more the lightning Genii passed,Strewing upon the rocks their steel-blue hair,I saw him stagger with the clanking chain,Trailing and shining ’neath the flickering glare.With little cries of joy he kissed the rainIn creviced rocks, and laughed to the old sea,And, nodding to and fro, sang songs of love,And flowers and little children. SuddenlyDropt down the velvet darkness from above,Hiding away the ocean’s yelping flocks.When flash on flash once more the lightning came,The youth had flung his arms around the rocks,And in the sibyl’s eyes a languid flameWas moving. Bleeding now, his grasp unlocks,And he is dragged again before her feet.Why not? He is her own; and crouching nighBending her face o’er his, she watches meetAnd part his foaming mouth with eager eye⁠—

To place a kiss of fire on the dim browOf Failure, and to crown her crownless head,That all men evermore may humbly bowDown to the mother of the foiled and dead.For this did the Eternal Darkness bringThither thy dust, and knead it with a cry,Gathered on her own lips, Oh youth, and flingFailure for glory down on thee, and mouldThy withered foe, and with the purple wingOf ocean fan thee into life, and foldFor ever round thy waking and thy sleepThe darkness of the whirlwind shattered deep.

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

In brief

Summary

A storm-lashed vision of a youth chained to a fierce sibyl.

Subtitled "A Political Poem", this is a dark vision of two giant figures chained together on a rock in a stormy sea. One is a grey-haired youth, worn out by struggle; the other a fierce sibyl, full of thirst and haunted by the ghosts of her old glories. Between flashes of lightning the youth breaks free for a moment, laughing and singing of love and flowers, then clings to the rocks. He is dragged back to her feet, and she bends over him. The last lines say why: he was made to crown Failure and to be flung failure instead of glory.

Lines to remember

The waves, enormous wanderers of the world,

Down to the mother of the foiled and dead.

Line by line

Lines 1 to 4The rock in the storm
A vision opens: lightning whirls over a rock, "Bruising the darkness", while the waves, "enormous wanderers of the world", beat on it "with their hammers day and night". The violent verbs set the scale at once.
Lines 5 to 13Two chained figures
Two figures crouch there, bound by "a coiling chain": a "grey-haired youth" whose cheeks have lost their colour, and a sibyl with a face like a dreaming hound. Lightning pulses in her brain; "Ignoble joy, and more ignoble pain" filled her youth, and hatred has bought and sold her spirit.
Lines 14 to 21The sibyl's ghosts
Foam bursts over her "spotted flesh and flying hair" and giant limbs. An unquenchable thirst glows in her dull stare, and round her walk bloodless phantoms of her faded pleasures and "Ghosts of her vanished glories", trailing crimson wings.
Lines 22 to 27The worn youth
Before her lies the youth, "Worn with long struggles". The waves have sung their passion and restlessness through his soul, "for ever old and young", until their miseries have lit "lone tapers" in his eyes.
Lines 28 to 38A moment's joy
Night falls; when the lightning returns, the youth staggers with his clanking chain. "With little cries of joy" he kisses the rain in the rocks, laughs at the sea and sings "songs of love, / And flowers and little children", until darkness drops again.
Lines 39 to 46Dragged back
In the next flash he has flung his arms round the rocks, and a "languid flame" stirs in the sibyl's eyes. Bleeding, he loses his grip and is dragged back to her feet. "He is her own", and she bends over his foaming mouth, watching eagerly.
Lines 47 to 58Crowning Failure
The close gives the purpose: to kiss "the dim brow / Of Failure" and crown her, so that all men bow to "the mother of the foiled and dead". The poet turns to address the youth: the Eternal Darkness kneaded his dust and flung him "Failure for glory", then fanned him into life with "the purple wing / Of ocean".

Themes

Bondage

The two are "bound / To one another with a coiling chain", and the whole poem turns on that chain. The youth's one escape, laughing and singing among the rocks, lasts only between two flashes of lightning before he is dragged back, because "He is her own". The subtitle asks us to read this bondage politically, though the poem never names the powers involved.

Failure

The ending is bleak. The youth exists to crown "Failure" and to make men bow to "the mother of the foiled and dead". He was given "Failure for glory". Failure here is not an accident but a destiny, shaped by "the Eternal Darkness", and the poem treats it with a kind of grim grandeur.

Youth and age

The youth is "grey-haired", "for ever old and young": young in years, old from long struggle. His brief joy is childlike, full of "little cries" and songs of "flowers and little children", against the sibyl's thirst and her ghosts of vanished pleasures and glories.

Context

This is one of the early poems, printed in periodicals or in his first book of 1889, that Yeats left out of his later collections. Its subtitle, "A Political Poem", invites an allegorical reading, and the chained pair are often taken as figures for Ireland and those who struggle for her, though the text names neither. The Titan chained to a rock recalls Prometheus in Greek myth, and the storm-driven grandeur shows the influence of Shelley, whose Prometheus Unbound the young Yeats admired.

Form

Fifty-eight five-beat lines, in two sections of 46 and 12 lines, mostly in cross rhyme: each line rhymes with the one two places before it ("whirl'd" and "world", "light" and "night"), and the poem closes on a couplet. The interlocking rhymes run on without a pause, like the waves and the lightning, and suit figures who cannot get free.