Anglo-Irish poet William Butler Yeats was an interesting man in interesting times. His body of work spanned six decades, included more than poetry, and made him one of the premier literary figures of his day. The December 2024 issue of Quest Magazine featured a line from Yeats and sparked within me a renewed interest in his work. Yeats features in a chapter of my personal story. I studied literature in college and a memorable class was a senior seminar on Yeats with the then-Dean of the college of liberal arts.
Yeats’ work evolved over time. As he matured and lived, the content and form changed. One might expect revisiting material that I first encountered nearly 20 years ago as a very young adult might come with expected differences in feeling but now, somewhere between youth and elderhood, I am struck by a nearly complete reversal. Yeats’ first published volume contains a poem titled The Song of the Happy Shepherd, which is worth reading in its entirety, contains a few lines that exemplify the sentiment.
THE woods of Arcady are dead,
And over is their antique joy;
Of old the world on dreaming fed;
Grey Truth is now her painted toy;
My search for meaning as a young adult was scientific, agnostic, humanistic, and occasionally atheistic. Grey Truth was all there was for me. These days, it leaves something to be desired.
Then nowise worship dusty deeds,
Nor seek, for this is also sooth,
To hunger fiercely after truth,
Lest all thy toiling only breeds
New dreams, new dreams; there is no truth
Saving in thine own heart. —
Yeats’ affinity for the occult, the mystical and the old clashed with my immature worldview. As I age, I feel drawn to what is unknowable by the “optics of the starry men” who observe and deduce the laws of the universe. The latter half of the poem tells of the natural and supernatural, and a truth that is bigger than the Grey Truth. Seek now your personal story and its meaning, for this is also sooth.
~Ian Van Sice
