Words

A poet realises his unreturned love is what drove him to write.

The poet admits a bitter thought: the woman he loves cannot understand what he has done, or would do, in "this blind bitter land". He grows weary until he remembers that all his best work was written to make himself plain to her, and that every year he has believed she now understood at last, because his words had grown strong. Then comes the twist: had she truly understood, there is no telling what would have been left. He might have "thrown poor words away" and simply lived. Her failure to understand is what keeps him a poet.

Line by line

1. Lines 1 to 4She cannot understand

   The poem begins with a private complaint, quoted as if overheard: "My darling cannot understand" his work or his purpose "In this blind bitter land". The alliteration of "blind bitter" makes Ireland itself part of the frustration.

2. Lines 5 to 8Weariness lifts

   He grows "weary of the sun", sick of life, until his thoughts clear. He remembers "that the best I have done" was all an effort "to make it plain": to explain himself to her.

3. Lines 9 to 12Every year's hope

   Each year he has cried that she "understands it all" at last, because he has "come into my strength" and "words obey my call". The hope renews itself with every advance in his craft.

4. Lines 13 to 16The twist

   But had she understood, no one can say what "would have shaken from the sieve". He might have "thrown poor words away" and been "content to live". The sieve image suggests that his poems are what remains after years of sifting frustration.

Themes

Context

The poem was published in The Green Helmet and Other Poems (Cuala Press, 1910) under the title "The Consolation", later changed to "Words". The "darling" is Maud Gonne, the nationalist campaigner whom Yeats met in 1889 and loved for most of his life, and who refused his proposals from 1891 onwards and married John MacBride in 1903.

The book marks a move towards a plainer, more argumentative style, and this poem is a clear example: it reasons its way to a conclusion rather than painting a dream. Its idea that her refusal fed his poetry sits alongside "No Second Troy" and "A Woman Homer Sung" in the same collection.

Form

Four quatrains rhymed abab ("understand" and "land", "again" and "plain"), with three lines of four beats and a shorter last line of three. The whole poem is one long, winding sentence of thought, and the short last line of each stanza brings it briefly to rest, ending on the quiet close "content to live".