Great Poem "Adam's Curse" by William Butler Yeats

This is one my favorite poems, and I'd also say it's one of the most beautiful pieces of verse ever written. Just look at some of the images like "A moon, worn as if it had been a shell/Washed by time's waters as they rose and fell/About the stars and broke in days and years." Just beautiful.

And the rhythm with the rhyming couplets is so musical and elegant, you could read the poem without understanding any of the words and enjoy it.

And of course the theme is beautiful as well. It speaks to working so hard at love and loving someone so much, and still watching it crumble under your fingers. We've all had to live under this disappoint at some point under our lives, and it's never an easy thing to face, especially when thousands of books, commercials, movies and songs tell you about the "everlasting power of love" or some bullshit like that. Anyway, enjoy the poem.

Adam's Curse
By William Butler Yeats

We sat together at one summer's end,
That beautiful mild woman, your close friend,
And you and I, and talked of poetry.
I said, 'A line will take us hours maybe;
Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought,
Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.
Better go down upon your marrow-bones
And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones
Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;
For to articulate sweet sounds together
Is to work harder than all these, and yet
Be thought an idler by the noisy set
Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen
The martyrs call the world.'

. . . . . . . . . And thereupon
That beautiful mild woman for whose sake
There's many a one shall find out all heartache
On finding that her voice is sweet and low
Replied, 'To be born woman is to know-
Although they do not talk of it at school-
That we must labour to be beautiful.'

I said, 'It's certain there is no fine thing
Since Adam's fall but needs much labouring.
There have been lovers who thought love should be
So much compounded of high courtesy
That they would sigh and quote with learned looks
Precedents out of beautiful old books;
Yet now it seems an idle trade enough.'

We sat grown quiet at the name of love;
We saw the last embers of daylight die,
And in the trembling blue-green of the sky
A moon, worn as if it had been a shell
Washed by time's waters as they rose and fell
About the stars and broke in days and years.

I had a thought for no one's but your ears:
That you were beautiful, and that I strove
To love you in the old high way of love;
That it had all seemed happy, and yet we'd grown
As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.

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A poem for today, "The Second Coming" by William Butler Yeats

(Note: I am of the opinion that most criticism is a sham. It misses the point of what art is about: the experiential nature of great works of beauty and how it relates to one personally. So my endnote will never be the sort of criticism one might see in the New York Times but something much more personal, sort of like a diary entry on a great work of art.)

This is one of the more famous poems of the 20th century and with good reason. It is in many ways a poem of despair. It reminds of the desperation we are all susceptible to in times of world crisis. (Paul Krugman used this poem in a recent column to describe the current financial crisis.)

The line that has always struck me the most is "The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity." There is a lot of truth here. So often those who are so certain about their world view and cannot see the flaws and counterarguments in that world view, are the ones who stir the masses the most. George W. Bush, Hitler and Osama Bin Laden come to mind. Their worldviews have certainty in them; it is much easier to see the world in black and white, good and evil especially if you're on the good side. In fact it feels good be on the good side; it gives one purpose and the "passionate intensity" that Yeats describes. Just don't be on the evil side. You're a scapegoat and container for the good side's uncertainty.

And too often it is the best of us who "lack all conviction" because these worldviews are decidedly postmodern. The best of us see that an ideology or argument are points of view based on a certain historical time period and have all the flaws and blindspots of any worldview. It is the best of us that see the world as a huge grey area, where good and evil cannot be as stringently categorized as most of us want it to be. The certainty is gone with this worldview. There is no "conviction." And because of this, it is harder for these people to act. But there is a huge benefit to this worldview: it will always a measure of humility that the "worst" and their "passionate intensity." And because of this, this worldview will be more likely to consider the consequences of their actions. It, in my view, will always do less damage and evil to the world.

The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?