Michael Robartes and the Dancer by WB Yeats

This collection is available to read freely online here.

For Garrett.

1. In this collection, Yates experiments structurally, often drawing out sentences. For instance, a line in "The Leaders of the Crowd" reads:

"How can they know
Truth flourishes where the student's lamp has shone
and there alone, that have no solitude."

That final phrase, "that have no solitude", took me multiple reads to understand. I think it's because the phrase is so far separated from the "they" that it modifies. I find this often weak here: it breaks the flow of the poem with the complexity that requires figuring out before the poem is trackable. The modifier and the modified are just too far apart for first-read legibility.

2. This collection requires effort from the reader and multiple reads of each poem. The poems shift directions, topics, and locations. These shifts endanger reader engagement. Three other examples come to mind:

—The two stanzas in "The Second Coming" differ wildly: the first is a despondent diagnosis of the world and man's affect, while the second is a spiritual reflection on a possible future growing out of this.

—The second example is "A Prayer for my Daughter", where nearly every stanza is separated by topic, time, person, action, or location. Like in a sonnet with a distinct volta, both the point and counterpoint have space in the poem—room to breathe and infect the reader's imagination.

—For the third example, let me use a short poem to really drive home how much space he gives to point and counterpoint in this sixteen-line poem. In "Under Saturn", the first three lines are given over to pining for lost love, then two to the comfort of present love, then five reflect on aging, then four recollect a recent situation, and finally two sum up the poem in a rumination. These significant changes throughout the poem puzzle the first-time reader and take time to parse out.

These three examples explain why I had to read most of these poems multiple times to get a sense of what is said. This complexity is not inherently a negative though: I think it works well in "A Prayer for My Daughter" because it's all driven by the title—yes it's a rambling, jumping prayer, but it is still the poet praying for his daughter—and in "The Second Coming", where each stanza is given space enough, memorable lines enough, and distinction enough to really work as a whole. Though these are puzzling poems, they are not generally too puzzling to unpack for two reasons: first, the unpacking is a pleasurable exercise because it's rewarding—"The Leaders of the Crowd" became one of my favorites after not understanding it initially. Second, some of the beautiful lines are gripping and allow the poems to impart something memorable on first read:

"And of a red-haired Yates whose looks, although he died
before my time, seem like a vivid memory."

3. These complex poems and associations of ideas or thoughts start out focused before wandering off into a widening gyre of association, then closing with a newly focused perspective. This works, but often on second or third read—not first. He seems more interested in the construction of arguments and progression of ideas than sounds. For example, in "Under Saturn", he opens focused on a specific situation—the poet accused of wool-gathering lost loves—then he touches on three other events and ideas before he focuses in again at the end, stating the actual cause of his "saturnine" mood, a cause which reflects back on the rest of the poem to cast it all in a new light. These three other events are consecutive, connected thoughts and memories growing wider in scope before narrowing again to the end. I think length of both line and poem allows these complex constructions to work: "A Prayer for my Daughter" also follows this pattern, but was more quickly understood because its length gave me time to get comfortable with the shifts. He starts one place, wanders wide through myriad reflections, and ends up another place.

4. This collection is characterized by contrasts. Let me take one poem for an example: "A Prayer for my Daughter". Yeats contrasts her peaceful sleep inside and the raging storm outside, her infancy and her future, the storm and his prayerful walk, beauty and kindness, the poet himself and his daughter, his wishes for her and society's, public courtesy and private same, ceremony and custom—all this while contemplating virtuous life. But in the end he chooses one over the other and, through his wishes for his daughter, he reveals himself and his priorities. This is just one example, but the rest of the poems in the collection are also characterized by contrasts. These contrasts allow him witty, judgmental summations—notably the one about Helen of Troy:

Helen being chosen found life flat and dull
And later had much trouble from a fool,

5. Here, some phrases pull double weight: in "The Second Coming", the line "what rough beast" can be read as interrogative or exclamatory and it works both ways. This is strong writing because Yeats does not do it too often. If he did, I would feel like the poem was meaningless. But by giving a rare single line here and there an available alternate meaning, it forces the reader to think about that option, and hence, the poem.

6. I had thought his incantatory voice was a byproduct of formulaic repetition. But here it comes from using exclamatory phrases followed by rolling stress patterns that come off ominously. He also uses some exact repetition—like in the second stanza of "The Second Coming", where the sentence structure and stress pattern changes to a more flowing, fast pace, punctuated by exact repetitions of phrase and word.

7. There is less formulaic end-rhyme here. Even in the mostly end-rhymed "The Leaders of the Crowd", the long lines and enjambment soften the impact of those end-rhymes: only four of the twelve lines are end-stopped. Often, end-stopped end-rhymes overwhelm a poem, but he does it well here through enjambment and long lines.

8. The theme here is revolution, war, daily life during both, and a contemplation of daily life in the future—which is the reason for both, the hope of both—and the past—which provides the reasons leading to both. This is a fairly focused collection and the first four poems contemplate the past, the next eight or so examine the present, while the last three focus on the future. This organizational structure helps the reader place poems that may at first appear ambiguous.

9. My favorites here are "A Prayer for my Daughter", "The Leaders of the Crowd", and "Under Saturn". I hated no poem, but found the first two off-putting in some way. I don't think I get them yet. I hope I do not have to read A Vision before understanding them.