The Full Text of “In Memory of W. B. Yeats”
The Full Text of “In Memory of W. B. Yeats”
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“In Memory of W. B. Yeats” Introduction
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"In Memory of W. B. Yeats" is W. H. Auden's complicated tribute to William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), considered the foremost Irish poet of his age and one of the finest writers in the English language. Throughout the poem, Auden weighs the complexities of Yeats's legacy, including his tremendous literary "gift" and his sometimes "silly" or foolish ideas. More broadly, he contemplates the poet's role in society, particularly during "nightmar[ish]" periods of history—like the eve of World War II, when Auden wrote the poem. Though Auden insists that "poetry makes nothing happen" from a historical standpoint, he suggests that poets can turn unrelieved human suffering into wise and even joyful art. The poem dates to February 1939, the month after Yeats's death, and appears in Auden's collection Another Time (1940). It remains one of the most famous poetic elegies of the 20th century.
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“In Memory of W. B. Yeats” Summary
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W. B. Yeats died in the middle of winter. Streams were iced over, airports were nearly empty, and snowfall made public monuments look distorted. The temperature dropped in mercury thermometers as night fell. By any measurement we can make, the day Yeats died was chilly and grim.
Far away from his sickbed, wolves kept racing through woods full of evergreen trees, and the humble river flowed past fancy waterfronts as if refusing their temptations. All the people mourning Yeats ensured that his poems lived even as he died.
For Yeats, however, it was his final day as Yeats, a day filled with hospital workers and spreading news (about his failing health). Parts of his body turned against him. His conscious mind went blank, like vacant city squares, and adjacent parts of his mind fell quiet. His nerves and bloodstream stopped working. He died physically but lived on through his readers.
Now his legacy can be found in cities worldwide. His work belongs entirely to the feelings of strangers. Their appreciation will be a happy afterlife, different than the enchanted forests he wrote about (or the metaphorical woods we journey through in life), but he'll also be judged harshly by standards he wouldn't have understood. When an author dies, living people process his words and alter their meaning.
Still, during tomorrow's self-important hubbub, when stockbrokers yell in the stock exchange like animals, and poor people struggle in the ways they're pretty used to, and unfree people mostly believe they're free, several thousand Yeats admirers will look back on his death-day as a fairly notable event.
By any measurement we can make, the day Yeats died was chilly and grim.
You shared our follies, but your talent outlasted all of it—the charity of wealthy ladies, bodily decline, your own personality. The chaos of Ireland spurred you to write poems. Despite all you wrote, Ireland is still full of chaos and bad weather, since poetry doesn't actually change anything. It lives on in the metaphorical region (of the mind or culture) where it comes from, a fertile area where the powerful would never want to meddle. It flows down like a river from the pasturelands of loneliness and the hubs of sorrow, from painful inner places (and/or fierce communities) that we devote our lives to. It flows on, a process, like speech or the mouth of a river.
Earth, take in a very special person: W. B. Yeats is now buried. May this overflowing source of Irish poetry lie empty at last.
In the terrible darkness of our times, all the aggressors of Europe threaten each other like angry dogs. Every nation on earth waits tensely, isolated by its loathing of others.
Everyone's expression reflects shameful ways of thinking, and tears of compassion freeze over in everyone's eyes.
Poet, get to the bottom of (or pursue virtue throughout) this dark time. Convince us, with your uninhibited voice, to celebrate in spite of everything.
Carefully cultivate your language, turning the curse that hangs over humanity into something fruitful. Sing about humanity's failures with passionate sorrow.
Wherever emotion has dried up, let it flow and heal again. Show free minds how to rejoice within the bounds of time and fate.
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“In Memory of W. B. Yeats” Themes
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Art, Fame, and Posterity
"In Memory of W. B. Yeats" memorializes the Irish writer William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), one of the most celebrated poets in the English language. By the time he died, Yeats was what he called a "public man": a Nobel Prize winner who had been an outspoken Irish nationalist, senator, theater manager, and more. Auden's elegy wrestles with Yeats's legacy as a public figure, and by extension, with the public role of famous writers. It stresses that the death of a great poet doesn't dominate the headlines, nor does the life of a great poet alter history in any obvious way. And while great poets live on in subtler ways in the public imagination, they forfeit control over their legacies when they die. It's the living, Auden's poem suggests, who ultimately get to decide what an artist's life and work meant.
Despite Yeats's fame, Auden claims that only "A few thousand" people will remember the day of his death. He won't be as widely and publicly mourned as a celebrity or political leader (though Yeats did enter politics for a time). Indeed, Auden shows the world going on much as it did before Yeats's death. The poet hasn't even radically reshaped his own country: "Mad Ireland" originally "hurt [him] into poetry," but after he dies, "Ireland has her madness and her weather still." Yeats couldn't politically or socially transform Ireland in the way he hoped.
Still, "The death of the poet was kept from his poems": that is, the poems endure as if their writer hadn't died. They've taken on an independent life, thanks to the "mourning tongues" of admirers reciting them. Great art, Auden's poem implies, outlives its maker. Yet Auden also emphasizes that, when great poets like Yeats die, they can no longer revise or refashion their own image: they belong to the public they courted.
Building on this idea, Auden's poem metaphorically compares Yeats's dying body to a country in crisis: "The provinces of his body revolted, / The squares of his mind were empty," and so on. These images imply that Yeats had evolved from an individual into a public institution and that his death completed this transformation: he was no longer "himself," just the part of himself he poured into literature.
Auden adds that Yeats "became his admirers" at the moment of his death, and that "The words of a dead man / Are modified in the guts of the living." In other words, writers live on through their readers, in ways they can't fully anticipate or control. They are "given over to unfamiliar affections" and "punished under a foreign code of conscience"—that is, loved in unexpected ways and judged harshly by unexpected standards. The way "snow disfigured the public statues" on Yeats's death-day reinforces the idea that public figures, such as Yeats, can't control their images after death. Time will transfigure and sometimes "disfigure" their legacies.
Though it's mainly about Yeats as an artist, the poem also subtly acknowledges Yeats's checkered political legacy. Yeats's politics were complex but often anti-democratic, and late in life, he flirted with fascist sympathies. Auden hints at these failings with the claim that Yeats will "be punished under a foreign code of conscience." (The poem also originally contained several stanzas, which Auden later deleted, suggesting that posterity would have to forgive Yeats's politics.) Yet Auden insists that Yeats's "gift" has "survived" his "silly" personal and political foibles—the ones he shares with "us," his readers.
Finally, Auden assigns Yeats, or the "poet" generally, various tasks on behalf of his people, again suggesting that great poets outlive their deaths. Even after formally "la[ying]" Yeats "to rest," Auden addresses the "poet" as if he were alive and had work to do, thus awarding him a kind of literary immortality. Auden urges the poet to "persuade," "Sing" to, "heal[]," and "Teach" readers, both in a particular historical crisis (the eve of World War II) and throughout the whole human drama. To Auden, a great poet like Yeats never truly dies; even if his fame or reputation fluctuates, he endures forever in the public mind.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-31
- Lines 32-41
- Lines 42-65
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The Power and Limits of Poetry
While summing up Yeats's legacy as a public poet, "In Memory of W. B. Yeats" reflects on the power and limitations of poetry in general. It does so partly through its most famous claim: "poetry makes nothing happen." But Auden's poem also qualifies this claim, imagining poetry as its own, surreptitious "way of happening" apart from the visible events of politics and history. By expressing "Raw" private emotions, this poem suggests, poetry voices the inner truth of public life—and makes that life more bearable.
Auden's poem admits that the short-term impact of poetry is limited. In fact, it contends that poetry has no historical impact at all. "A few thousand will think of" Yeats's death day, the poem remarks, "As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual." For everyone else, including the suffering "poor" and the busy financial "brokers," the poet's death will get lost—at least initially—"in the importance and noise of to-morrow." The life and death of a poet, even a public one, will always get buried under more outwardly "importan[t]" events. "In Memory" further claims that Yeats's poetry didn't materially change Ireland's history or politics—and that, in general, "poetry makes nothing happen."
Yet Auden's poem credits poetry with a different kind of power than the political kind: the power to voice private truths, creating a parallel or underground record of human experience. He repeatedly adds that poetry "survives" despite its seeming ineffectuality. He imagines it as a river "flow[ing]" through a place "where executives / Would never want to tamper"—a psychological region that powerful history-makers want nothing to do with. (Presumably, it would discomfort them or even challenge their claim to power.) By taking on the burden of "isolation," "griefs," and profound "belie[fs]," poetry becomes "A way of happening, a mouth." It doesn't make anything happen, historically speaking, but it's another way history plays out in human life. Implicitly, it creates a different and truer narrative than the one defined by the powerful.
Finally, Auden suggests that poetry can help people cope with history, including tragedies and political crises. Gesturing toward the gathering "nightmare" of World War II, he instructs the poet (and, by extension, poetry) to fulfill an important mission. He suggests that poetry might counteract the "Intellectual disgrace" of the times and thaw the "pity" that lies "frozen in each eye" (i.e., move people to empathetic tears). Though poetry can't lift the "curse" that seems to hang over humanity, he implies that it can make that curse artistically fruitful and our shared suffering tolerable. In calling on the poet to "persuade us to rejoice," "Sing of human unsuccess / In a rapture of distress," and "Teach the free man how to praise" within "the prison of his days," Auden argues that poets hold a timeless social role. They transform suffering into song and find redemptive meaning—even a kind of joy—in the endless human struggle.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 24-29
- Lines 34-41
- Lines 46-65
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Human Tragedy and Suffering
"In Memory of W. B. Yeats" places Yeats's death in a much larger context: both a precarious historical moment and the overall history of human suffering. Yeats died early in 1939, the year World War II broke out after years of violence in Europe. Auden regrets his loss at a "dark" hour of human history, but he has no illusions that Yeats was any kind of savior-figure, and he portrays the human experience itself as irrevocably tragic. (Or a mix of tragic and farcical, due to the "sill[iness]" of human nature, which Yeats shared with the rest of "us.") In the poem's view, art can mitigate human sorrow and failure, but it can't erase them—and neither can anything else.
The poem positions Yeats's death as one more ominous tragedy in the menacing pre-war period. The "dark cold day" of his death seems to sum up the mood of the times. "In the nightmare of the dark / All the dogs of Europe bark" describes the run-up to WWII (which began with smaller conflicts and invasions). As dictatorships like Hitler's consolidate and wage violence, "the living nations wait"—seemingly for catastrophe—in isolation and "hate." The poem also gestures toward Yeats's own controversial politics, which could be undemocratic, quasi-fascist, or just plain "silly." In short, Yeats was a great poet who spoke meaningfully to his troubled era, but he was far from perfect himself, and now he's gone.
Yet Auden doesn't limit his commentary to his particular period: he stresses that suffering endures in spite of anything art (or politics) accomplishes. It's an unalterable part of the human experience, not just a fact of one nation or era. Auden notes, for example, that Yeats was born into an Ireland whose political "madness" preceded him and will survive him. Yeats's death also occurs in a world where, for example, "the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly accustomed / And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom." Human life, for Auden, is determined by fate, and pain and injustice are part of that fate. He returns to this theme in the poem's final lines: "In the prison of his days / Teach the free man how to praise." (In other words, we can reconcile ourselves to our fate, but not escape it.) Most broadly of all, humanity belongs to a natural world full of unalterable danger and cruelty, where predators like "wolves" forever "[run] on through the evergreen forests."
Fundamentally, then, the poem views human life as a never-ending tragedy—a story of "unsuccess," which art can beautify but cannot change.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 5-8
- Lines 24-31
- Line 32
- Lines 34-36
- Lines 46-65
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “In Memory of W. B. Yeats”
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Lines 1-6
He disappeared in ...
... dark cold day.Auden's elegy for "W. B. Yeats," the famous Irish poet, begins by describing the weather on the day Yeats died. This first section of the poem is written in free verse; its long, detailed lines sound a little like prose reportage, though they contain more figurative language than journalism.
As the first line reports, Yeats died "in the dead of winter": January 28, 1939. (Notice that Auden says "He disappeared," a more eerie and ghostly verb than "died" or "passed away.") The imagery of the following lines conjures up a chilly scene:
The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,
And snow disfigured the public statues;
The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.The idiom "the dead of winter" makes the season itself seem morbid—a symbolically appropriate setting for the death of a great poet. (After all, poets work with symbolism and natural imagery all the time.) Indeed, as Yeats died, the "day" itself was metaphorically "dying" along with him. Auden personifies the day here, imagining it as a sick patient with a "mercury" thermometer in its "mouth," its temperature dropping as it expired (i.e., as night fell). The whole atmosphere of this "dark cold day" seems to reflect the fate of a single person.
At the same time, nothing in the scene acknowledges Yeats's death in any literal way. There's very little human presence here: "the airports [are] almost deserted." The "frozen" water makes the mood of the scene feel icy and repressed. Meanwhile, the "snow disfigur[ing] the public statues" seems both realistic and symbolic. It's a reminder that public figures, like Yeats, lose control of their images after they die; their reputations can be distorted in all sorts of ways. It's also a sign that nature doesn't respect or care about human fame.
Given all this context, "He disappeared" seems to indicate that Yeats slipped away unnoticed. The poem will go on to suggest that this is partly true and partly untrue. The whole elegy will wrestle with the question of poets' influence (or lack thereof). Do great poets change the world, or does their work simply vanish into an indifferent culture? For Auden, who was deeply influenced by Yeats, this question has powerful relevance to his own work. He asserts that Yeats's death-day was grim according to "What instruments we have"—not just thermometers, but metaphorical instruments like literary judgement. As far as critics can judge, in other words, the loss of this poet is a terrible loss for the world. But the assertion is tentative, suggesting that "What instruments we have" are limited. Only time will tell what Yeats's death—and life—might mean to the wider culture.
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Lines 7-11
Far from his ...
... from his poems. -
Lines 12-17
But for him ...
... became his admirers. -
Lines 18-23
Now he is ...
... of the living. -
Lines 24-29
But in the ...
... something slightly unusual. -
Lines 30-31
What instruments we ...
... dark cold day. -
Lines 32-34
You were silly ...
... Yourself. -
Lines 34-36
Mad Ireland hurt ...
... makes nothing happen: -
Lines 36-41
it survives ...
... happening, a mouth. -
Lines 42-45
Earth, receive an ...
... of its poetry. -
Lines 46-49
In the nightmare ...
... in its hate; -
Lines 50-53
Intellectual disgrace ...
... in each eye. -
Lines 54-57
Follow, poet, follow ...
... us to rejoice; -
Lines 58-61
With the farming ...
... rapture of distress; -
Lines 62-65
In the deserts ...
... how to praise.
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“In Memory of W. B. Yeats” Symbols
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Winter/Cold
The poem reports the literal truth that W. B. Yeats died on a "dark cold day" in "winter." But the poem also plays with the symbolism attached to the cold and darkness of winter. The season is traditionally associated with death and dying, and sometimes with emotional coldness as well. Thus, the wintry atmosphere of Part I seems to reflect the somber event of Yeats's death, as well as the indifference with which much of the world responds (from the wolves in the forests to the brokers in the stock exchanges).
The word "dark" pops up again in Part III: "In the nightmare of the dark / All the dogs of Europe bark." Here, the darkness of night symbolizes the cultural darkness that has descended on Europe: the ominous pre-WWII atmosphere of violence, ignorance, and so on.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Lines 1-6: “He disappeared in the dead of winter: / The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted, / And snow disfigured the public statues; / The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day. / What instruments we have agree / The day of his death was a dark cold day.”
- Lines 30-31: “What instruments we have agree / The day of his death was a dark cold day.”
- Line 46: “In the nightmare of the dark”
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Wolves/Forests
"Far from [Yeats's] illness," Auden reports, "The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests." Symbolically, these wolves evoke the inhuman wildness, violence, and permanence of nature. The lines suggest that nature goes on as it always has, despite anything that happens in the human world. Nature is indifferent to even the most tragic human events—from the death of a great artist to the death of a whole civilization. It can also be just as cruel as humanity is, the presence of these wolves suggests, since humans are ultimately part of nature.
In other words, Auden uses this symbolism to place Yeats's death in a much larger context. He uses a similar technique in "The Fall of Rome," which describes a civilizational collapse, then jump-cuts to a remote natural scene:
Altogether elsewhere, vast
Herds of reindeer move across
Miles and miles of golden moss,
Silently and very fast.Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Line 8: “The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests,”
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The Peasant River
The poem also describes another scene occurring "Far from [Yeats's] illness" and death: "The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays."
Quays—a loan word from French—means wharves or landing places along a body of water. That these quays are "fashionable" suggests that they belong to ritzy towns, tourist destinations, and so on. But the river flows past them like a metaphorical "peasant," humble and "untempted" by these glittery places. Symbolically, then, the river is associated with nature, as well as with average working people—neither of whom (the line implies) care for the fashions of the upper classes.
This line comments indirectly on Yeats's poetry. On the one hand, it gestures toward Yeats's deep interest in folklore and myth (literature produced by ordinary people), as well as his tendency to ignore literary fashions (as if racing past them). On the other hand, it subtly critiques what Auden saw as Yeats's unhealthy love of aristocrats and sentimental, hypocritical view of the "peasant" classes. Auden elaborates on this at length in "The Public v. the Late Mr. William Butler Yeats":
[Yeats] extolled the virtues of the peasant. Excellent. But should that peasant learn to read and write, should he save enough money to buy a shop, attempt by honest trading to raise himself above the level of the beasts, and O, what a sorry change is there. [...] For there was another world which seemed to him not only equally admirable, but a deal more agreeable to live in, the world of noble houses, of large drawing rooms inhabited by the rich and the decorative, most of them of the female sex. [...] The deceased had the feudal mentality. He was prepared to admire the poor just as long as they remained poor and deferential [...]
As such, this mini-allegory about the humble river and the rich towns cuts both ways. It acknowledges Yeats's celebration of "peasant" virtues, but also hints at his attraction to the rich and "fashionable" and implies that actual poor people (and/or nature itself) would not be impressed by it.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Line 9: “The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;”
- Lines 36-41: “it survives / In the valley of its making where executives / Would never want to tamper, flows on south / From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs, / Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives, / A way of happening, a mouth.”
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Statues
The "public statues" in line 3 represent public figures in general: "great," powerful, and/or celebrated people. Yeats himself was such a figure, as he famously acknowledged in his poem "Among School Children," describing himself as "A sixty-year-old smiling public man." By that point in his career, he had won the Nobel Prize in Literature and gained readers around the world.
Auden describes "snow disfigur[ing]" the statues—distorting or defacing the sculpted images. Symbolically, this detail implies that public figures lose control of their images, particularly after they die. Their reputations can be distorted or undermined in all sorts of ways with the passage of time.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Line 3: “And snow disfigured the public statues;”
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“In Memory of W. B. Yeats” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Allusion
"In Memory of W. B. Yeats" alludes, indirectly, to Yeats's poetry as well as his life.
For example, "The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays" evokes Yeats's love of Irish folklore and folk culture. His poetry often celebrates what Auden called "the virtues of the peasant," and he once edited an anthology called Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (1888). However, Auden believed Yeats's love of the "peasant" was in some ways hypocritical and patronizing, since Yeats also courted the favor of the aristocracy. Thus, the symbolism of this line is ambiguous: both the humble "river" and the "fashionable quays" could represent aspects of Yeats's work and life. (See the Symbols section of this guide for more.)
"To find his happiness in another kind of wood" (line 20) also echoes various moments in Yeats's work, as well as in older literature. The line refers to Yeats's literary afterlife, the way his work will endure in the hearts of posterity. Yeats himself imagined the afterlife as a supernatural wood in works like "Cuchulain Comforted," one of his last poems. In "Sailing to Byzantium," one of his best-known poems, he imagines spending his own afterlife as a golden bird on a "golden bough." So Auden may be implying, here, that Yeats's afterlife will be different than those he imagined, yet still "happ[y]" in its way. Moreover, the Italian poet Dante (1265-1321) famously imagined life as a journey through dark woods (the opening line of Dante's Inferno places its author in the middle of the journey). This literary echo, too, suggests that Yeats has departed one kind of life for another.
Lines 58-59 ("With the farming of a verse / Make a vineyard of the curse") probably allude to Yeats's poem "Adam's Curse," which in turn alludes to the biblical Fall of Man (see Genesis 3:13-19). Yeats's poem stresses the hard work that goes into writing poetry; Auden suggests that this work can be redemptive.
Finally, lines 52-53 ("And the seas of pity lie / Locked and frozen in each eye") seem to allude to the fiction writer Franz Kafka (1883-1924), who famously wrote: "A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us." In other words, literature should make us feel something! Auden echoes this idea in the following stanzas, as he urges the "poet" to move the stubborn "heart[s]" of readers.
Where allusion appears in the poem:- Line 9: “The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;”
- Line 20: “To find his happiness in another kind of wood”
- Lines 34-35: “Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry. / Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,”
- Lines 42-45: “Earth, receive an honoured guest: / William Yeats is laid to rest. / Let the Irish vessel lie / Emptied of its poetry.”
- Lines 52-53: “And the seas of pity lie / Locked and frozen in each eye.”
- Lines 58-59: “With the farming of a verse / Make a vineyard of the curse,”
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Repetition
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Metaphor
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Juxtaposition
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Apostrophe
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"In Memory of W. B. Yeats" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- The dead of winter
- Disfigured
- Mercury
- Mouth of the dying day
- The peasant river
- Quays
- Provinces
- Revolted
- Current of his feeling
- Affections
- Code of conscience
- Brokers
- Bourse
- Your gift
- Parish
- Mad Ireland
- Executives
- Tamper
- Ranches
- Mouth
- Vessel
- Dogs of Europe
- Sequestered
- Unconstraining
- Vineyard
- Unsuccess
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(Location in poem: Line 1: “He disappeared in the dead of winter:”)
An idiom meaning the middle or coldest part of winter. Auden is playing on the phrase's morbid connotations. (Yeats died on January 28, 1939.)
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “In Memory of W. B. Yeats”
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Form
The poem has an unusual and complex structure. It's broken into three parts, each of which features a separate form. Part I has six stanzas, Part II has one, and Part III has six, but the stanzas are constructed differently in each section.
- Part I is written in free verse.
- Part II uses a loose accentual meter and subtle rhymes.
- Part III uses AABB-rhymed quatrains of trochaic tetrameter (four-beat lines that follow a DUM-da, DUM-da rhythm).
As a result, the elegy moves toward greater strictness and formality. It begins with almost prose-like reportage and ends up formally "la[ying]" its subject "to rest."
The three sections have other key differences, too:
- Part I recounts Yeats's death in the third person, while Part II addresses him in the second person, through apostrophe. Part III begins by addressing the "Earth" in which Yeats is buried, then turns to addressing a figure it calls "poet." This might refer to Yeats, to Auden himself, or to the figure of the poet in general. (Or some combination of the three.)
- Midway through Part II, the poem's language switches from past to present tense, as Auden turns from Yeats's past to the urgency of current events. (The transitional Part II didn't appear in the very first publication of the poem; Auden added it for a second printing weeks later.)
Finally, the form of the third section is a subtle homage to Yeats. Its rhymed trochaic tetrameter mimics the form of one of Yeats's last poems, "Under Ben Bulben," the final lines of which are his literal epitaph.
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Meter
The three sections of the poem differ metrically. Part I contains prose-like free verse, which adds to its narrative or journalistic quality. Part II uses a rough accentual meter, with approximately five beats per line. Take lines 32-33:
You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:
The parish of rich women, physical decay,A handful of lines in this section might contain more or fewer than five stresses (the shorter line 41 clearly contains fewer). Meter isn't an exact science, and the pattern in this section is especially loose. Still, the lines are generally even in terms of length and number of stresses, so that the slant-rhymed verse sounds controlled and musical rather than awkward. (Rhymed poetry without any kind of meter usually falls flat.)
Part III is written in quatrains of trochaic tetrameter, meaning that its lines contain four stresses and follow a stressed-unstressed (DUM-da, DUM-da) rhythm. Here's how that pattern sounds in the first quatrain:
Earth, receive an honoured guest:
William Yeats is laid to rest.
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.This meter imitates that of "Under Ben Bulben," one of Yeats's last poems, which is shadowed by thoughts of mortality and intended as an epitaph for himself. It has a heavy, dirge-like quality appropriate to a funereal elegy—and appropriate to the solemn instructions Part III issues to the "poet." In general, the poem grows more strictly formal as it goes along.
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Rhyme Scheme
Part I of the poem is written in free verse, so it has no rhyme scheme. Part II contains a single stanza, which is rhymed (or slant-rhymed) ABBACCDCCD:
[...] all: A
[...] decay, B
[...] poetry. B
[...] still, A
[...] survives C
[...] executives C
[...] south D
[...] griefs, C
[...] survives, C
[...] mouth. DPart III is written in quatrains that rhyme AABB (i.e., in the section's first quatrain: "guest"/"rest"/"lie"/"poetry").
As with the poem's meter(s), there's a trend toward greater formal strictness over the course of the three sections. Not only does the third section rhyme more predictably, it rhymes more exactly. There's only one exact rhyme ("south"/"mouth"), plus one identical rhyme ("survives"/survives"), in Part II; the rest are slant rhymes. By contrast, there's only one slant rhyme ("lie"/"poetry") in Part III; the rest are exact. The poem transitions from an experimental, modernist meditation into a more conventional, formal elegy (the kind Yeats wrote for himself in "Under Ben Bulben").
This mix of styles could itself be seen as a tribute to Yeats, who's seen as a transitional figure between the formal traditionalism of 19th-century poetry and the experimentation of early 20th-century modernism. Yeats never wrote verse quite as free as the kind found in Part I, but he did sometimes work with the kind of loose rhythms and slant rhymes found in Part II.
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“In Memory of W. B. Yeats” Speaker
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The speaker of the poem uses first-person plural pronouns: "What instruments we have agree," "You were silly like us," etc. He speaks in a collective voice of mourning, perhaps on behalf of Yeats's "admirers" (line 17), or "the living" who must process his achievement (lines 22-23). It's implied, however, that the speaker is also W. H. Auden himself: one prominent poet assessing the legacy of another.
By 1939, Auden was widely recognized as the most talented UK poet of his generation (though he was soon to move to America). In some ways, he was a successor to Yeats: a poet of outstanding technical gifts, a flair for political poetry, and a strong public presence outside of his writing. Both men found early literary success, wrote for the stage as well as the page, and were deeply engaged with the politics of their time. (Yeats served a stint as Senator in the Irish Free State, for example, while Auden had visited Spain during the Spanish Civil War, hoping to drive an ambulance for the republican side. He did some minor propaganda work instead.) Auden was influenced by Yeats's vast literary achievements; however, Auden's politics were well to the left of Yeats's, especially during this period.
All of this background informs Auden's tribute. He lays Yeats to rest with "honour[s]" and praises Yeats's poetic "gift," but suggests that this gift "survived" despite Yeats's politics and personality. For example, his gift survived "the parish of rich women"—the patronage of the wealthy aristocrats whose favor Yeats sought—and "Yourself," meaning Yeats's own character. Auden also comments on the "nightmar[ish]" historical moment he's witnessing (the pre-WWII period), which Yeats no longer shares as a living person, but which he can still speak to as a "poet."
In the same year that he wrote "In Memory of W. B. Yeats," Auden wrote an essay, "The Public v. the Late Mr. William Butler Yeats," which works through some of the same ideas as the poem. For example, the essay states, "The case [against Yeats] rests on the fallacious belief that art ever makes anything happen," echoing the poem's claim that "poetry makes nothing happen."
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“In Memory of W. B. Yeats” Setting
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The poem ranges over a number of settings, both real and metaphorical. First it reports on the day of Yeats's death "in the dead of winter" (January 28, 1939). Yeats died at the Hôtel Idéal Séjour in Menton, France, so the snowy scene Auden depicts probably refers to that location, though it might also describe Auden's own surroundings when he heard the news. In any case, he describes it as a "dark cold day," marked by "frozen" waterways, "almost deserted" airports, and "snow [on] the public statues." The grim weather seems to mirror the poet's mood of mourning.
Auden also imagines settings "Far from" the poet's death: "wolves" in "evergreen forests," a "peasant river" passing "fashionable quays" (i.e., a humble river flowing past fancy waterfronts), and "the bourse" (stock exchange; most likely the Paris Bourse) where "brokers" buy and sell stocks. All of these details have symbolic overtones; the wolves and river represent primitive nature (as opposed to humanity), while the bourse represents the world of finance and commerce (as opposed to art). More broadly, they represent the world that goes on without Yeats—especially the part of the world that goes on without caring about him. Yet Auden also describes Yeats's legacy as "scattered among a hundred cities," suggesting that the poet has had some global influence after all.
In part II, Auden invokes "Ireland," Yeats's home country. Yeats was a committed Irish nationalist (that is, he favored Ireland's independence from Britain) and served a stint as an Irish politician. Auden suggests that the political "madness" of Ireland—a somewhat snarky way of describing its conflicts and economic struggles under British rule—"hurt" Yeats "into poetry," or caused a psychological wound that moved him to launch a literary career.
In Part III, Auden widens the poem's scope again, describing all of Europe during the run-up to World War II: "All the dogs of Europe bark, / And the living nations wait, / Each sequestered in its hate" (lines 47-49). This geopolitical turmoil forms a crucial backdrop to the poem. Auden registers Yeats's death as one more tragedy during a tragic and ominous time, while remaining mindful of flaws in Yeats's own politics.
Auden also describes places and settings that are purely metaphorical, as when he compares Yeats's dying body to a collapsing country (with "provinces" that "revolted," etc.) in lines 14-17. Another important example occurs in lines 36-41, when he imagines poetry as a kind of river flowing through a psychological landscape full of "isolation," "griefs," etc. Likewise, the "vineyard," "deserts," and "prison" in Part III refer to elements of the psyche or human condition, not literal places.
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Literary and Historical Context of “In Memory of W. B. Yeats”
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Literary Context
Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-1973) wrote "In Memory of W. B. Yeats" in February 1939—the month after William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) died—and published it in his collection Another Time (1940).
Composed in the period preceding and following the outbreak of World War II, Another Time features some of Auden's best-known political poems, including "September 1, 1939," "Epitaph on a Tyrant," "Refugee Blues," and "The Unknown Citizen." It also contains such frequently anthologized and quoted classics as "Funeral Blues" and "Musée des Beaux Arts." The book groups "In Memory of W. B. Yeats" under the heading "Occasional Poems," meaning poems written for a particular occasion.
Auden is considered one of the masters of English-language poetry. He was a modernist who helped to define that early 20th-century movement, with its groundbreaking formal and stylistic experimentation. At the same time, he is highly regarded for his facility with traditional verse forms. (With its mix of free verse and meter, "In Memory of W. B. Yeats" exemplifies the range of his craft.) The wit, technical skill, and restless variety of his work gained him wide acclaim as both a poet and critic.
Auden's early poetry was deeply political, and often explicitly socialist and anti-fascist. For a time, critics viewed him as the head of a so-called "Auden Group" of left-wing UK poets, which also included Louis MacNeice, Stephen Spender, and Cecil Day-Lewis. As his career went on, however, Auden grew skeptical of poetry's ability to effect social change. "In Memory of W. B. Yeats" arguably signals that shift with its claim that "poetry makes nothing happen"—though the claim is qualified. Even as Auden's work became increasingly personal and spiritual, it remained at the forefront of English-language literary culture, much as Yeats's had been throughout the previous generation.
For his part, Yeats is generally considered the most influential Irish poet in modern history. He was the central figure of the Irish Literary Revival, a.k.a. the Celtic Twilight, a movement that brought renewed attention to Ireland's literature, culture, and Gaelic heritage during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was also an essayist, political writer, and playwright who co-founded Ireland's popular Abbey Theatre. As the poem reports, he died "in the dead of winter," on January 28, 1939. Auden didn't know him well in real life, but he acknowledged Yeats's deep influence on his work—even if he was ambivalent about it. "I've come to the conclusion Yeats had a bad influence on me," he said in his later years. "Not his fault, poor dear, mine."
Historical Context
Auden wrote "In Memory of W. B. Yeats" on the cusp of World War II, about seven months before the Nazi invasion of Poland. Although the invasion itself was shocking, flying in the face of the 1938 Munich Agreement that had sought to contain Hitler and Germany's territorial expansion, the war itself was not particularly surprising to many observers of the time. The conflict between fascist and left-wing/democratic forces had already sparked the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), and the aggression of fascist dictators, particularly Germany's Adolf Hitler, had already embroiled Europe in an intense diplomatic crisis.
Hitler's ascent to power in 1933 was part of an era of European history marked by the rise of fascist governments. A political philosophy defined by dictatorial power, political violence, the regimentation of society (e.g., the repression of speech), and intense nationalism, fascism led to rampant militarism and Germany's conquest of surrounding countries, including Austria and Czechoslovakia. Initially, other European powers, like France and England, sought to control the Nazis' violent expansion through policies of appeasement rather than confrontation. Hitler's invasion of Poland marked the end of that approach. Ultimately, World War II became a global conflict spanning multiple continents; by the war's conclusion, 40 to 60 million people had died.
"In Memory of W. B. Yeats" is set against the backdrop of this violent period. It makes its historical context clear in lines 46-49:
In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;These metaphorical "dogs" are warmongers, dictators, and other political aggressors. The poet feels the "hate" among "nations" intensely and senses that Europe—or the world—is just "wait[ing]" for war to break out. In contemplating Yeats's impact and legacy, Auden is also thinking about his own, and about the role of the poet in a time of mass upheaval.
The poem also points toward Ireland's then-recent history, and toward Yeats's role in it. Yeats was an Irish nationalist who, in his later years, served as a senator in the quasi-independent Irish Free State. Many of his poems comment on Irish political figures and historical events, often in anguished or ambivalent ways ("Easter, 1916" and "To a Shade" are two examples among many). Though he supported the nationalist cause, he often condemned the fanaticism and bigotry of its leaders. During the 1920s and 1930s, Yeats's politics drifted toward authoritarianism and fascism (though here, too, he was ambivalent). In the line "Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry," Auden implies that Ireland's political turmoil motivated Yeats to start writing in the first place. In calling Yeats "silly like us" and warning that he will be judged by a "foreign code of conscience," Auden voices skepticism of Yeats's views and character.
In three stanzas that Auden originally published but later cut from the poem, he judges that "Time" has pardoned Yeats's "cowardice, conceit," and bad politics because he was a great writer. In "The Public v. the Late Mr. William Butler Yeats," an essay written the same year as the poem, Auden argues both sides of the political case against Yeats. In the role of "Public Prosecutor," he declares: "For the great struggle of our time to create a juster social order, [Yeats] felt nothing but the hatred which is born of fear." As "Counsel for the Defence," he argues:
However false or undemocratic his ideas, [Yeats's] diction shows a continuous evolution towards what one might call the true democratic style. [...] The diction of [his later poetry] is the diction of a just man, and it is for this reason that just men will always recognize its author as a master.
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More “In Memory of W. B. Yeats” Resources
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External Resources
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An Auden Documentary — Watch a short film about Auden's life, poetry, and historical period.
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The Poet's Life — An introduction to Auden's life and work, courtesy of the Poetry Foundation.
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Auden and Political Poetry — Read about Auden's complex relationship to his own political poems.
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The Poem Aloud — Listen to W. H. Auden read "In Memory of W. B. Yeats."
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Auden's "Trial" of Yeats — Read Auden's 1939 essay "The Public v. the Late Mr William Butler Yeats," in which he subjects Yeats's legacy to a mock trial.
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Who Was W. B. Yeats? — An introduction to the subject of Auden's elegy.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by W. H. Auden
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