To his Heart, bidding it have no Fear

W. B. Yeatsfirst published 1899from The Wind Among the Reeds7 lines

Earlier titled "To my Heart, bidding it have no Fear"

Be you still, be you still, trembling heart;Remember the wisdom out of the old days:Him who trembles before the flame and the flood,And the winds that blow through the starry ways,Let the starry winds and the flame and the floodCover over and hide, for he has no partWith the lonely, majestical multitude.

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

In brief

Summary

The poet tells his trembling heart to let fear go.

The speaker tells his own "trembling heart" to be still and to remember an old wisdom. Whoever trembles before the great elemental forces, "the flame and the flood" and the winds of the starry ways, should let those forces cover and hide him, for he has no place among "the lonely, majestical multitude", the solitary, noble company of those who do not fear. The poem is a short, stern act of self-encouragement.

Lines to remember

Be you still, be you still, trembling heart;

With the lonely, majestical multitude.

Line by line

Lines 1 to 2Be still
The doubled "be you still" is a calming command, spoken to the heart as if to a frightened animal. The heart is sent back to "the wisdom out of the old days", teaching far older than the speaker's fear.
Lines 3 to 7The old wisdom
The wisdom is harsh: whoever "trembles before the flame and the flood" should be swallowed by them. The elements return as "the starry winds and the flame and the flood", and the fearful man "has no part" with "the lonely, majestical multitude". Courage is the price of belonging.

Themes

Fear and courage

The poem is spoken inwards, to the poet's own heart. It does not deny fear, since the heart is "trembling". But it sets a hard standard: those who tremble before fire, flood and wind are cut off from the great company. To belong, the heart must face the elements without flinching.

The elements

Fire, water and wind appear twice, first as things that cause fear, then as forces that "Cover over and hide" the fearful. The "starry ways" and "starry winds" make them cosmic. They are the powers of an ancient, magical world, which only the brave may join.

Context

The poem was collected in The Wind Among the Reeds (Elkin Mathews, London, 1899) as "To my Heart, bidding it have no Fear", a title changed only slightly in later editions. Its "wisdom out of the old days" and its elemental images reflect Yeats's study of magic and mysticism in the 1890s, when he belonged to the occult Order of the Golden Dawn.

Form

Seven lines of uneven length, rhymed abcbcac ("heart", "days", "flood", "ways", "flood", "part", "multitude"). "Flame", "flood" and "starry" return from lines 3 and 4 in line 5, like a chant, and the heavy, grand "majestical multitude" gives the close a ceremonial sound.