[32] An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

Guest poem submitted by Amit Chakrabarti <amitc@>

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

	-- William Butler Yeats

Simple, almost mundane language, and yet resonant. There is
little need to add "explanations" to this poem; it speaks
for itself. However, I can't help mentioning that the last
stanza -- especially the repetition of the words "waste of
breath" -- is one of my all time favourite poem slices.

Although the poem can be enjoyed on its own, it is interesting
to learn the circumstances that led to its creation. The unnamed
narrator in this poem was meant to be Major Robert Gregory, the
son of Lady Augusta Gregory, the single most influential person
in Yeats' life and writings.

Robert himself was an artist (painter) whom Yeats respected and
collaborated with; he designed numerous side sets for Yeats'
plays. In this poem Yeats celebrates the self-chosen nature of
Robert Gregory's death (he did die fighting, while an airman).
For more glimpses of this man's life and his influence on Yeats'
read the (somewhat longish) "In Memory of Major Robert Gregory".

[ Info from "The Yeats Companion" by Ulick O'Connor ]

Amit

[Chacko has asked me to supply the rest of the annotation, so.... -m.]

Biographical Notes:

  Yeats was born in Dublin on June 13, 1865, the eldest of four children.
  [...] Yeats' mother Susan Pollexfen Yeats, the daughter of a successful
  merchant from Sligo in western Ireland, was descended from a line of
  intense, eccentric people interested in faeries and astrology. From his
  mother Yeats inherited a love of Ireland, particularly the region
  surrounding Sligo, and an interest in the folklore of the local peasantry.

  Not until he was eleven years old, when he began attending the Godolphin
  Grammar School in Hammersmith, England, did Yeats receive any type of
  formal schooling. From there he went on to the Erasmus Smith High School
  in Dublin, where he a generally disappointing student - erratic in his
  studies, prone to daydreaming, shy, and poor at sports. In 1884 Yeats
  enrolled in the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin, where he met the
  poet George Russell. With Russell, Yeats founded the Dublin Hermetic
  Society for the purposes of conducting magical experiments and promoting
  their belief that "whatever the great poets had affirmed in their finest
  moments was the nearest we could come to an authoritative religion and
  that their mythology and their spirits of water and wind were but literal
  truth." This organization marked Yeats' first serious activity in occult
  studies, a fascination which he would continue for the rest of his life,
  and the extent of which was revealed only when his unpublished notebooks
  were examined after his death. Yeats joined the Rosicrucians, the
  Theosophical Society, and MacGregor Mathers' Order of the Golden Dawn.
  Frequently consulting spiritualists and engaging in the ritual conjuring
  of Irish gods, Yeats used his knowledge of the occult as a source of
  images for his poetry, and traces of his esoteric interests appear
  everywhere in his poems.

  In 1885 Yeats met Irish nationalist John O'Leary, who helped turn his
  attention to Celtic nationalism and who was instrumental in arranging for
  the publication of Yeats' first poems in The Dublin University Review.
  Under the influence of O'Leary, Yeats took up the cause of Gaelic writers
  at a time when much native Irish literature was in danger of being lost as
  the result of England's attempts to anglicize Ireland through a ban on the
  Gaelic language.

    -- excerpted from Exploring Poetry, Gale, 1997. see
    <http://www.nelson.com/gale/poetry/yeatsbio.html> for the whole essay.

Criticism:

  "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" is one of the three poems written on
  the occasion of the death of Yeats's friend Robert Gregory. Critic John
  Lucas, in his book 'Modern English Poetry - Hardy to Hughes: A Critical
  Survey', mentions that this poem was not only used to mourn the loss of
  Gregory but also to "affirm his commitment to values that are, so it
  seems, to become time's victims." According to Lucas, Yeats wished to show
  that Gregory chose death in order to escape the waste of age. He explains,
  "Yeats implies that Gregory knew his work to be finished in one brief
  flaring of creative intensity and that he therefore chose death rather
  than wasting into unprofitable old age." Lucas goes on to mention that the
  poem is essentially concerned with the balance between life and death.
  "Yeats presents Gregory in the act of balancing all, seeing himself poised
  between 'this life, this death.'"
	 -- Exploring Poetry, Gale, 1997.

From: G B <hidden@>

I am interested to read that Robert Gregory himself 'was an artist 
(painter) whom Yeats respected and collaborated with; he designed 
numerous side sets for Yeats' plays.'  Perhaps Yeats was more attracted 
to Gregory than the other way around - I read a newspaper article a few 
years ago that indicated that Gregory did not like Yeats very much, 
finding him rather strange, and was not pleased by the frequency of his 
visits to his mother's house (Rathcoole, if memory serves me 
correctly). If this is true, it is ironic that Gregory owes his place 
in history to this striking poem. Shane McGowan of the Pogues and the 
Cafe Orchestra have put it to music in a quite remarkable version which 
was made available on a CD of Yeats' poems put to music a few years ago.

GB, Ireland

From: "Lt Abhilash Tomy" <abhilash.tomy@>

I strongly disagree with Lucas. This is not a poem that mourns the
passing of Gregory. In fact it is anything but that. You need to be a
pilot to know what it is all about.
There is not greater joy or source of delight for a fighter than to be
flying his fighter. In fighting an enemy he is not protecting his
homeland though that is how it would appear to the men below. The
presence of another is not treated in the same vein as the presence of
an enemy. What our airman sees is a competitor, someone who has staked
claim to his supremacy in the air. Therefore I fight, to prove who is
the better. What the landlubber thinks of me is a myth. I dont protect
anyone below, I dont yearn for glory, but the simple delight flying my
craft in a manner other men have not. The death of my enemy is
immaterial to me. His death is not because he fought for the wrong
ideal. For he died because he did not fly as well as i did. Someday I
too will die becuase I would not have flown as well as the other did.
Yet that death is what I look forward to. Nothing else is acceptable.
Its a certainty. There is an inevitability in my death. But that is
because I choose it to be so. I know no other delight. There is no
greater joy.
The poem is actually very simple. Lucas need not read in between the
lines and try to derive meanings that yeats was not intending to imply.
However, the fact that the poem stands in stark contrast to what shaw
implies in his play (I cant recollect the name) must be noticed. Shaw
(in the chance encounter of a foot soldier with a lady) impresses how
experience teaches a soldier that the preservation of ones life is more
important thann anything else and how romantic notions attached to war
was a purely civilian idea. Yeats on the other hand brings in that same
denounced romantic notions into the airman's death in the poem though in
a somewhat uncivilian manner.
Fly. You will know. How it feels to be so close to God. So close, you
almost feel as if you were God. What then would I care about Kiltartan's
poor!

Regards
Lt Abhilash Tomy