Re: Yeats "in a shade": William Butler Yeats Campfire
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line. William Butler Yeats & Re: Yeats "in a shade"
Posted by Dougald on April 26, 192003 at 05:25:52:
In Reply to: Yeats "in a shade" posted by Jennifer on August 11, 192002 at 06:59:04:
The 'man' in the second stanza of 'To a shade' is Sir Hugh Lane, who had offered to donate pictures to the people of Dublin. It's a complicated affair, but as I understand it part of the gift was conditional on the Corporation providing a gallery to house them. (Another poem from 'Responsibilities' - 'To a wealthy man who promised a subscription...' - is addressed to one of those whose money might have funded the gallery, probably Lord Ardilaun of the Guinness brewing dynasty.) Anyway, the money for the gallery seems not to have been forthcoming, and this is the starting point for 'To a shade'. Yeats conjures up the spirit of the nationalist hero Parnell and says he'd be saddened at Lane's treatment. Lane, according to Yeats, is a kindred spirit of Parnell - 'A man/ Of your own passionate serving kind'. What he had 'brought/ In his full hands' are the paintings, or the generosity of spirit and cultural wealth for which they stand. For this generosity, he is ill-treated - the 'enemy, an old foul mouth' is William Martin Murphy, a newspaper magnate who opposed Lane.
As for the 'coverlet', Glasnevin is the graveyard in which Parnell is buried. 'The time... has not yet come...' joins Parnell to the army of sleeping heroes in Yeats, which go back to the old stories of the king under the hill who'll return in the people's hour of greatest need.
Sir Hugh Lane - and Yeats' perception of his mistreatment, in this case his failure to be made curator of the National History Museum of Ireland - is also the subject of 'An Appointment'. These are great poems, but you do need certain bits of historical information to unlock them. A good modern annotated edition does the job - I use a Vintage paperback 'Collected Poems' edited by Augustine Martin.