The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats, Vol. 6 (of 8): Ideas of Good and EvilYeats, W. B. (William Butler)
General
The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats, Vol. 6 (of 8): Ideas of Good and Evil
Yeats, W. B. (William Butler)
English literature -- Irish authors
I do not think it was accident, so subtle are the threads that lead the
soul, that made William Morris, who seems to me to be the one perfectly
happy and fortunate poet of modern times, celebrate the Green Tree and
the goddess Habundia, and wells and enchanted waters in so many books.
In _The Well at the World’s End_ green trees and enchanted waters are
shown to us, as they were understood by old writers, who thought that
the generation of all things was through water; for when the water that
gives a long and fortunate life and that can be found by none but such
a one as all women love is found at last, the Dry Tree, the image of
the ruined land, becomes green. To him indeed as to older writers Well
and Tree are all but images of the one thing, of an ‘energy’ that is
not the less ‘eternal delight’ because it is half of the body. He never
wrote, and could not have written, of a man or woman who was not of the
kin of Well or Tree. Long before he had named either he had made his
‘Wanderers’ follow a dream indeed, but a dream of natural happiness,
and all the people of all his poems and stories from the confused
beginning of his art in _The Hollow Land_ to its end in _The Sundering
Flood_, are full of the heavy sweetness of this dream. He wrote indeed
of nothing but of the quest of the Grail, but it was the Heathen Grail
that gave every man his chosen food, and not the Grail of Malory or
Wagner; and he came at last to praise, as other men have praised the
martyrs of religion or of passion, men with lucky eyes and men whom all
women love.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account