To a Shade by W. B. Yeats (The poem, Summary & Analysis)

 

To a Shade

by W. B. Yeats

(The poem, Summary & Analysis)

 

About the poet

William Butler Yeats 1865–1939 was an Irish poet, dramatist, prose writer of the 20th-century literature. He helped to found the Abbey Theatre, and in his later years served two terms as a Senator of the Irish Free State. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival along with Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn and others.

Yeats was born in Sandymount, Ireland, and educated there and in London. He spent childhood holidays in County Sligo and studied poetry from an early age, when he became fascinated by Irish legends and the occult. These topics feature in the first phase of his work, which lasted roughly until the turn of the 20th century. His earliest volume of verse was published in 1889, and its slow-paced and lyrical poems display debts to Edmund Spenser, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and the poets of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. From 1900, his poetry grew more physical and realistic. He largely renounced the transcendental beliefs of his youth. In 1923, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

To a Shade

(The poem)

If you have revisited the town, thin Shade,

Whether to look upon your monument

(I wonder if the builder has been paid)

Or happier-thoughted when the day is spent

To drink of that salt breath out of the sea

When grey gulls flit about instead of men,

And the gaunt houses put on majesty:

Let these content you and be gone again;

For they are at their old tricks yet.

 

A man

Of your own passionate serving kind who had brought

In his full hands what, had they only known,

Had given their children's children loftier thought,

Sweeter emotion, working in their veins

Like gentle blood, has been driven from the place,

And insult heaped upon him for his pains,

And for his open-handedness, disgrace;

Your enemy, an old foul mouth, had set

The pack upon him.

 

Go, unquiet wanderer,

And gather the Glasnevin coverlet

About your head till the dust stops your ear,

The time for you to taste of that salt breath

And listen at the corners has not come;

You had enough of sorrow before death--

Away, away! You are safer in the tomb.

Summary

‘To A Shade’ is a political poem and was published in the volume called ‘Responsibilities’. It is an expression of disgust against the Irish people who ill-treated Parnell, an Irish nationalist political leader and the founder of the Irish Parliamentary Party. His betrayal was the talk of the whole Ireland around that time.

The poet starts his poem with an ironical statement to the spirit of a nationalist leader Charles Parnell. He says, that the spirit should know, that the contractor of the monument has not yet been paid. The spirit might have come here to enjoy the air of the sea shore, but there is nothing to see, for the spirit, except grey gulls and the gaunt houses. The people of the town are still on their old tricks.

The poet further talks about another person, Hugh Lane, who had passions and feelings like Charles Parnell. This man had also served the nation and its people with generosity and had given them loftier thoughts. But this man was also insulted and was criticized by the same pack of ‘foul mouths’ (critics).

In the last part of the poem the poet asks the unquiet wonderer to cover itself with the Glasnevin Coverlet because what it thinks has not yet been happened i.e., the people of the town have not yet reformed themselves. The poet says, that the time for the spirit to come and watch the ways of the people of the town has not yet come. The spirit had enough of sorrow before death and his soul is safer in the tomb.

Analysis

“To A Shade” is a powerful poetic comment on the treatment of the political and cultural leaders by the Irish people in general. The reference to the ghost of Parnell in the first stanza, then to Hugh Lane in the second and again to Parnell in the third makes a strong circularity.

The poem mixes colloquial tone with formalism and rhetoric is used to help politicize comments in the poem. The imagery is highly remarkable as well as evocative in the poem, the poignancy in which the sorrows and ill-treatment of Parnell and Hugh Lane is vividly expressed is also noticeable.

In the first stanza of the poem, the poet begins by addressing the ghost of the politician, Charles Stewart Parnell. He wonders over the reason for the ghost’s arrival. He thinks, that possibly it is because he wants to look upon his own “monument” or to “drink of that salt breath out of the sea.” He thinks of the builder of the monument and whether or not he was paid.

The poet says, that Parnell might want to see “grey gulls” and the “gaunt houses” by the sea, with no men in sight. In the last lines of this first stanza the speaker warns Parnell that he should stick to the sea and the monument. The people are not worth visiting. They are still “at their old tricks.”

Yeats begins the second stanza, with a very short line of only two words, “A man.” This is a reference to another Irishman, Hugh Lane.

Yeats is comparing the efforts Lane made to improve the city to those which Parnell attempted. Both were insulted by the public. The poet says, that both these men would have “given” the children of the city “loftier thought” and created “Sweeter emotion” in their veins, but insult heaped upon him (Lane) for his pains, And for his open-handedness, disgrace. The poet sees the actions of the public as shameful. The way Lane was treated is more than comparable to the treatment of Parnell.

In the third stanza the poet again addresses Charles Stewart Parnell, who has returned to the earth as a “shade”. He is now but a “wanderer.” The poet also asks the ghost to take with him his “Glasnevin coverlet.” He is referring to the cemetery in which Parnell was buried in the north of Dublin. Yeats says, that Parnell should go back to the dirt, in which he was buried until the “dust stops” his ear.

The poet believes, that Parnell will be safer and less sorrowful beneath the earth than above it, where the public can still offend him.

‘To a Shade’ is full of ironies. The first few lines of the poem present ironical situation because when Charles Parnell was alive, he had been criticized but now a monument has been raised when he is dead. The poem is written in alternate rhyming pattern. Adjectives have been used in abundance. The last line of the poem “Away away, you are safer in the tomb”, according to some critics, is reminiscent of keats’ line in his famous ode ‘to a nightingale’. The poet has not followed any regular pattern of rhythm.