Meru: WB Yeats

By: Bijay Kant Dubey

Civilisation is hooped together, brought
Under a rule, under the semblance of peace
By manifold illusion; but man’s life is thought,
And he, despite his terror, cannot cease
Ravening through century after century,
Ravening, raging, and uprooting that he may come
Into the desolation of reality:
Egypt and Greece, good-bye, and good-bye, Rome! 

Hermits upon Mount Meru or Everest,
Caverned in night under the drifted snow,
Or where that snow and winter’s dreadful blast
Beat down upon their naked bodies, know
That day bring round the night, that before dawn
His glory and his monuments are gone. 

Oh, how to think of modern English poetry without William Butler Yeats, his myth and myth-making, his Irish mindset and Upanishadic leaning, thought and philosophy? How to deconstruct him without knowing his Indian thought and element? How the mythic framework and structure, the Oriental and the Occult mysteries culminating in him for a symbolical outburst, a mythical text, a poetic expression so individualistic in tradition? But it is the myth and mysticism of the Orient which draws him closer to Vedism, Upanishadim and Puranic elements and he searching for meaning under the wrap of his spiritual quest, thirst for knowledge. So from Byzantium to where, to Mount Meru, Kailash and Mansarovar just as a hermit, a gypsy reminding us of Tintern Abbey of Wordsworth to some extent? To read the poem is to be reminded of the whole Himalayan wisdom and knowledge. Where do the swans fly to? Where is Meru? What it is on Meru? What it in the peaked mountain? How the ascent of thought? How the steps leading to? Shall we be able to meet God?

Whatever be that, something has definitely impelled it to write Meru as the name of the Himalayan ranges, Annapurna, Dhaulagiri, Nanda Devi, Kailash, Makalu have always eluded the people from time to time and this the lore of our wisdom which the sages have inhabited with their meditation and sadhna.

The civilizations which we talk of are but an illusion, as these come and go away when the span is over. There were the heydays of the civilizations of Egypt, Greece and Rome. They came one by one and went away. But what is it existent now? What is it that we have got it from? They were all under one umbrella with a view to expanding and systematizing their lengths with their settlements. So were the spells, spans and developments connected with. But man’s life is a thought. Besides material prosperity, gain, what have we for spiritual progress? What about our mystical experiences, spiritual quest?

I do not know what had it been going on in the mind of Yeats when he had been Meru? How the manuscript of it? Certainly he would have been engrossed in the wisdom of the ancient Hindu sages, the Himalayan spaces would have engaged him. Hindu philosophy looms large over him and he cannot help without. But had he tantra, how much would he have scaled about? We think it within.

Meru, is it not the story of his spiritual ascent and progression? Maybe it the climbing history too would have attracted him then. Civilization is but an illusion. Many a civilization flourished and had its heyday, but where have they led to finally? Hunger cannot always feed upon. The quenching of bodily hunger is it not all. But it is transcendent meditation which ultimately leads to.

But Meru will last long, as the abode of physical, spiritual, metaphysical and religious centres, as is in fabled too in Hindu, Jain, Buddhist texts. We live a life of our own, but the hermits in the Himalayan ranges lying bare-bodied, shivering with cold or beating down the colder climes are lost in the thoughts of their own to add to the human saga of spiritual quest and meditative fulfillment rejecting publicity and propaganda, never after name and fame.

What are they for? What is it burning their inward? Where the fire leading unto? A communion with the Mystical Spirit and the Mythical Embodiment? A spiritual thirst, quest for knowledge taking them to there where no human can dwell.

Meru is the myth of mystical vision and spiritual quest which the poet describing it here in this poem; Meru is the story of his spiritual progression, a journey of the self. How to summit the peak of transcendental height?

The hermits know it the story of creation, how the night of darkness, how the dawn breaking at daybreak? The home of Brahma, Indra and other Hindu deities, Meru is just like Emersonian Brahma. Meru is a poem of some mythical space and the ice needs to be cut.

Yeats wrote Meru, why did he not choose Kailash? Meru lies in yatra-tantra, showing as the vault of the universe, Brahma giving lesson to, Indra and so many deities. This syndrome is just a meditational posture dwelling far with the eyes closed and the mind travelling as a lonely traveller, as the self journeys. It has been rightly said where the sun cannot go there goes the poet and his poetic imagination. The story of the Naga sadhus is beyond description, the tales of their hard penance and rigorous sadhna subjecting the body to what it cannot endure, unimaginable indeed.

What does it remain it here at the end of? How the realization of life? What are the hermits for, bearing untold sufferings and seasoning the body? What are they lost in? Where are they lost and unnoticed on Meru lost in meditation? They know it well that it remains it not here. Everything is but temporary and short-lived. Every dawn is set to flash new when the night is over. All that has been done or speaks of his glory will be gone forever.

Where to locate them, those hermits of Everest and Meru, lying hidden from the public eyes without any name or fame leading an ascetic life, but of course the great saints and sages of ancient wisdom? Even under the snow they can do their tapasya, sadhna without taking food or anything, lying hungry for, thirsty for. What is in them, say you? What is that they are up for? What hunger burns in them? What thirst is in? Why are they thereon? What for? The wide world knows it not nor do the materialistic people.

Something of the coat, the overcoat lies it in Meru which is but mythically embroidered, the coat, the overcoat of Yeats, but when it gets old, it will need to be changed.

In the poem, Meru of Yeats, I also see the images of the climbers, mountain trekkers and adventurers risking their life to summit the challenging peaks. How to tell the tale of Meru? How to hear the tale of Meru? What it in reality, what it in myth? The myth of life, the myth of the world?

In Meru, see I the ancient wisdom of the sages and saints of India lost in their sadhna unawares, ascending the peaks, caverned under snow during the night, bearing it all for.

 

The Indian Upon God: WB Yeats

 BY: Bijay Kant Dubey

I passed along the water’s edge below the humid trees,
My spirit rocked in evening light, the rushes round my knees,
My spirit rocked in sleep and sighs; and saw the moorfowl pace
All dripping on a grassy slope, and saw them cease to chase
Each other round in circles, and heard the eldest speak:
Who holds the world between His bill and made us strong or weak
Is an undying moorfowl, and He lives beyond the sky.
The rains are from His dripping wing, the moonbeams from His eye.
I passed a little further on and heard a lotus talk:
Who made the world and ruleth it, He hangeth on a stalk,
For I am in His image made, and all this tinkling tide
Is but a sliding drop of rain between His petals wide.
A little way within the gloom a roebuck raised his eyes
Brimful of starlight, and he said: The Stamper of the Skies,
He is a gentle roebuck; for how else, I pray, could He
Conceive a thing so sad and soft, a gentle thing like me?
I passed a little further on and heard a peacock say:
Who made the grass and made the worms and made my feathers gay,
He is a monstrous peacock, and He waveth all the night
His languid tail above us, lit with myriad spots of light.

Who is the Indian described here? What is he discussing? Is it about Indian faith and belief system? Or, Indian culture, philosophy and religion?  What the matter is? Or, Yeats himself under the influence of Swami Purohit or Mohini Chatterjee is reflecting upon? When was the poem composed? But apart from all that it is quite clear that he has been under occultism, Eastern philosophy, theosophical society, myth and mythology since the start. Whatever be that, The Indian Upon God as a poem shows the poet’s grappling with mythologies and poetry as he interweaves them into his poetry as art motifs. His sense of Indology, India and Indian culture, Vedic and Upanishadic vision, spiritual studies, transcendental approach and pantheistic realm is so strong and rarer that we feel awestruck with that in coming to terms with such a lore draped in verse. Taking the cue from the Genesis of the Bible, he goes on elucidating in his style. But to understand Yeats is no easy task.

The Indian Upon God as a poem is all about how do the Indians perceive God and hold it to be and their concept of the Over Soul and realization of the self. To perceive God is to see it in all. Where is God not, in what is it not? God is everywhere, in each and every object that see we, find we. Taking a pantheistic stand, the poet tries to discern it by alluding to in his personal way of reflection. Nature so freckled and wild is the image of His. Just we should have the vision to see and feel it the whole pantheistic panorama. He is Matter and Mass, Mind and Spirit, Over Soul and the Over Spirit.

The poet passes along the water’s edge below the humid trees with his spirit rocked in evening light, rushes round his knees and he drifting far. In that mood of reflection and visionary glide, loiter and steps taken, sleep and sighs take over the spirit. While moving ahead, he sees a moorfowl pacing and dripping on a grassy slope. The flocks getting round or strayed far in circles cease to chase and the eldest of them is heard speaking: 

Who holds the world between His bill and made us strong or weak
Is an undying moorfowl, and He lives beyond the sky.
The rains are from His dripping wing, the moonbeams from His eye.

Herein lies in the understanding and metaphysics of W.B.Yeats and his grappling with Indian thought and wisdom. The poet comes to feel where peace is, what does the soul want, where to go ultimately and what it is that lasts for. A communion with the soul in the midst of Nature is the essence. Some sort of peace is needed to carry on the discourse.  The Maker of the moorfowl is but an undying being and without thinking of the fowl and its image how could he have the wild bird? He lives beyond the sky. The rains drip from His dripping wing and the moonbeams from the eyes. How amazing is it that taking the bird he composes the metaphysical lines! The poet wants to say that the One who has made us has also made the moorfowl. 

The poet moves a little ahead and hears the lotus talk about how it has been in the image of His and how Divinity is almost like that:

Who made the world and ruleth it, He hangeth on a stalk,
For I am in His image made, and all this tinkling tide
Is but a sliding drop of rain between His petals wide.

How mystical are the lines said through the depiction of the lotus and the stalk! How the lotus in scenic and panoramic in penetration! Who has made it the world and who rules it? He hangs onto a stalk. He is but a lotus, the Greater Lotus which but you know it not! He is the Lotus Divine! The Lotus of Wisdom and Knowledge! The Pearly Drops scattered over the petals! The lotus petals splashed with water drops, dew drops, growing in the midst of water are but the imagery and painting of His!

Again, he makes a room for himself and moves forward, but gets intercepted by a roebuck lying in the gloom with a unique starlit glitter in the eyes of it ready for its turn to say, break upon:

Brimful of starlight, and he said: The Stamper of the Skies,
He is a gentle roebuck; for how else, I pray, could He
Conceive a thing so sad and soft, a gentle thing like me?

The poet means too say that it is the same Creator who has made us has made the roebuck. The idea carries the kernels of thoughts as discussed by Blake and Hopkins. In the eyes of the roebuck, God is but a creature like them as because He could not have had He not thought in that context. The colour design, the marks, are but the things and ideas of His and without whose mercy it could not have been conceived. God as the Stamper of the Skies is an impressionist line expressing about the impressions made by Him. It is He who has fashioned the world as per His image and the world bears the stamps of His.

The poet passes a little further and marks a peacock saying:

Who made the grass and made the worms and made my feathers gay,
He is a monstrous peacock, and He waveth all the night
His languid tail above us, lit with myriad spots of light.

If we take the peacock’s version, who is that who has made the green grass, worms and its feathers? He is a great peacock which dances all through the night. His languid tail is above us, lit with the myriad spots of light. God is the Peacock of peacocks. It is really splendid to see God through the peacock imagery. Side by side it is amazing to see the peacock so wonderfully painted and designed. Colours take us to a dreamy plane of thinking. How would it have been the brush and colours of God that He applied in making the peacock and its feathers! Really, the riot of colours is appalling, bluish, blackish, greenish and freckled and at the same time so fanciful, frenzied, imaginative and dreamy! The words ‘a monstrous peacock’ and ‘languid tail’ relate to something as awe or bizarre inculcated in.

We do not know if an Indian poet can write as such. William Butler Yeats is really a great poet so mythological and profound in his expression unparalleled in history, a paragon of poetic artistry and consummate craftsmanship. Had he visited India, it would have been great, but he could not! And we too failed to invite him!

Anashuya And Vijaya: W.B.Yeats

By: Bijay Kant Dubey

I do not know it nor can say to if anybody in English wrote such a poem of a mythical debate and discussion centring round human psyche and its chastity, feminine sensibility and its thinking, the notion of keeping of heart and soul dedicated and devoted with full loyalty banishing infidelity and toeing along the classical lines. The purity of heart, thought and idea how did it hold its sway over, how the human idea of the chastity of thought? These were but classical discussions which kept us engaged for as for purging the human soul. But psychology is something different, the layers of consciousness, if delved deep something other will come out and the things are not so as we think it to be. The crude things will remain crude, the core stuffs core. Anashuya’s devotion and dedication we admire and appreciate it, her satihood, the state of purity and chastity upholding feminine dignity and verve. But which is whose here?

We do not know the story as somebody can it that Yeats might have Anashuya on the model of Shakuntala and Vijaya on that of Dushyanta, but what to say it about, nothing sure of? Had Yeats been, we would have for an explanation as none can explain as the poet can himself and is the best critic of his poetry rather than anyone else doing the criticism. Anashuya is but a much debated character and whose character is it here we do not know.

W.B.Yeats is perhaps dreaming like Lawrence thinking about the daughters of Frieda in The  Virgin and the Gypsy. Or, maybe it that he is trying to write a mini Abhijnanshakuntalam  on a lyrico-dramatic format, trying his utmost best to take it further the side characters after assigning them roles and remodelling on that format.

It is the love of a rishi-kanya, a sati-sadhvi, how to feel it? How to feel the fragrance of the  flower blooming in the forest tract as Gray says it in Elegy? An adorer of love, a worshipper of heart and soul in reality as such has been delineated and portrayed herein. How do the  celestial ladies love? How do the royals and classicists? A classical and purist version of love and romance seen through the devotional framework of attachment and loyalty, serenity and calm is the thing of deliberation.. The flower of love, how to feel it, how to feel its fragrance? How the flora of classicism and the Vedic hermitage?

Pavitra prem, pavitra manna, sacred love, sacred inner heart, how to conceive it? How to dispel the images of others from the manna, the inner mind and heart? Niscchal prem, guileless love, how many of us take it to? Here we find Dushyanta forgetting Shakuntala, but such a thing has also happened in British history when Edward VIII abdicated his throne as for in relationship with an American divorcee.

How the Temple of Love? How the flight of imagination? How the ashramite maids in love in the midst of exotic flora and fauna? How the classical version of love story? How the royal story of love? Here the flamingos of love flying? Where the swans showing serenity? How to dispel it guile from the innocence of heart? Who is whose lover? Of the heart or the body? Why does the mind think in a suspicious way?

What it crosses over the heart of Anashuya and what does she take to, how the state of her mind and feeling, how to say it all that? How does Vijaya take to her love? The Cottage of Love and how the worshippers of it?

ANASHUYA AND VIJAYA

A little Indian temple in the Golden Age. Around it a garden; around that the forest. ANASHUYA, the young priestess, kneeling within the temple.

ANASHUYA

Send peace on all the lands and flickering corn.—
O, may tranquillity walk by his elbow
When wandering in the forest, if he love
No other.—Hear, and may the indolent flocks
Be plentiful.—And if he love another,
May panthers end him.—Hear, and load our king
With wisdom hour by hour.—May we two stand,
When we are dead, beyond the setting suns,
A little from the other shades apart,
With mingling hair, and play upon one lute.

VIJAYA [entering and throwing a lily at her]

Hail! hail, my Anashuya.

ANASHUYA

No: be still.
I, priestess of this temple, offer up
Prayers for the land.

VIJAYA

I will wait here, Amrita.

ANASHUYA

By mighty Brahma's ever rustling robe,
Who is Amrita? Sorrow of all sorrows!
Another fills your mind.

VIJAYA

My mother's name.

ANASHUYA [sings, coming out of the temple]

A sad, sad thought went by me slowly:
Sigh, O you little stars! O, sigh and shake your blue apparel!
The sad, sad thought has gone from me now wholly:
Sing, O you little stars! O, sing and raise your rapturous carol
To mighty Brahma, he who made you many as the sands,
And laid you on the gates of evening with his quiet hands.

[Sits down on the steps of the temple.]

 

Vijaya, I have brought my evening rice;
The sun has laid his chin on the gray wood,
Weary, with all his poppies gathered round him.

VIJAYA

The hour when Kama, full of sleepy laughter,
Rises, and showers abroad his fragrant arrows,
Piercing the twilight with their murmuring barbs.

ANASHUYA

See how the sacred old flamingoes come,
Painting with shadow all the marble steps:
Aged and wise, they seek their wonted perches
Within the temple, devious walking, made
To wander by their melancholy minds.
Yon tall one eyes my supper; swiftly chase him
Far, far away. I named him after you.
He is a famous fisher; hour by hour
He ruffles with his bill the minnowed streams.
Ah! there he snaps my rice. I told you so.
Now cuff him off. He's off! A kiss for you,
Because you saved my rice. Have you no thanks?

VIJAYA [sings]

Sing you of her, O first few stars,
Whom Brahma, touching with his finger, praises, for you hold
The van of wandering quiet; ere you be too calm and old,
Sing, turning in your cars,
Sing, till you raise your hands and sigh, and from your car heads peer,
With all your whirling hair, and drop many an azure tear.

ANASHUYA

What know the pilots of the stars of tears?

VIJAYA

Their faces are all worn, and in their eyes
Flashes the fire of sadness, for they see
The icicles that famish all the north,
Where men lie frozen in the glimmering snow;
And in the flaming forests cower the lion
And lioness, with all their whimpering cubs;
And, ever pacing on the verge of things,
The phantom, Beauty, in a mist of tears;
While we alone have round us woven woods,
And feel the softness of each other's hand,
Amrita, while——

ANASHUYA [going away from him]

Ah me, you love another,

[Bursting into tears.]

And may some dreadful ill befall her quick!

VIJAYA

I loved another; now I love no other.
Among the mouldering of ancient woods
You live, and on the village border she,
With her old father the blind wood-cutter;
I saw her standing in her door but now.

ANASHUYA

Vijaya, swear to love her never more,

VIJAYA

Ay, ay.

ANASHUYA

Swear by the parents of the gods,
Dread oath, who dwell on sacred Himalay,
On the far Golden Peak; enormous shapes,
Who still were old when the great sea was young
On their vast faces mystery and dreams;
Their hair along the mountains rolled and filled
From year to year by the unnumbered nests
Of aweless birds, and round their stirless feet
The joyous flocks of deer and antelope,
Who never hear the unforgiving hound.
Swear!

VIJAYA

By the parents of the gods, I swear.

ANASHUYA [sings]

I have forgiven, O new star!
Maybe you have not heard of us, you have come forth so newly,
You hunter of the fields afar!
Ah, you will know my loved one by his hunter's arrows truly,
Shoot on him shafts of quietness, that he may ever keep
An inner laughter, and may kiss his hands to me in sleep.

Farewell, Vijaya. Nay, no word, no word;
I, priestess of this temple, offer up
Prayers for the land.

[VIJAYA goes.]

O Brahma, guard in sleep
The merry lambs and the complacent kine,
The flies below the leaves, and the young mice
In the tree roots, and all the sacred flocks
Of red flamingo; and my love, Vijaya;
And may no restless fay with fidget finger
Trouble his sleeping: give him dreams of me.

What sort of king is it who cannot recognize even his wife? Is love for to be forgotten; a thing of forgetfulness? But against the backdrop of it, Anashuya cannot let Vijaya go and talk otherwise. Yeats’ poem is a study of celestial love. Here immortal hearts burning with the immortal flame of love are at dialogue with each other.  Two hearts in love are chatting dramatically.

I do not know who Anashuya? Who Vijaya? But Yeats knew it Anashuya. How did he come to know about them? An Anglo-Irish poet from across the saat samudras, how could he have? From which pundita did he hear the story? How did he hear the lore of ancient India? How could Yeats think of writing a poem on Anashuya, the talk of the Hindu household? Mostly the Hindu women talk about the name whatever be the denomination. The  feminine chastity, virginity is the crux of the matter as shown in the character of Anashuya is also a thing discussed from ancient times. But our self, can it be so purer and stainless? Is suspicion not present in the mind of man? Can jealousy be expelled really? Can one dispel the thoughts of the consciousness layers? The poem is dramatic and the dialogues are lively no doubt.  There is some internal action going on in the poem. Some sort of dialogue between the selves has been carried it forward.  Something of the personality split has been inculcated in.

Yeats wrote about Anashuya. The story of feminine chastity and purity would have charmed him on finding Gonne contradictory. Would have been in the know of Samson’s Delilah. Keats’ Lamia would have definitely stricken him. Even though we talk of celibacy and austerity, can we banish the carnal desires from our self? Even nuns cannot, fathers cannot, great rishis and munis cannot get victory over human charm, fascination, infatuation with and temptation. What did  it happen to Vishwamitra and Menaka?

Yeats would have definitely begun  Anashuya And Vijay in a dialogue format, but for some reason he failed to complete the poem centring round the chaste character of Anashuya and the other self at criss-crosses so lucidly. Anashuya is just an archetype, a motif, a symbol, a representation. There is something of the old classical times, but classicism cannot be golden all the times. What it is morality; didacticism has always a base rooted into the soil. Classicism though is based on a set of rules and regulations, a set of moral nomenclature and protocol, but everything is not in austerity, rigidity, and hardening of heart.  The ‘papa’ is but inherent in human ‘manna’ and man cannot banish it. Jealousy is but a part of our nature; it is in our heart. So, how to be pure? To be loyal, chaste, devoted and dedicated is good. To be noble, obedient, orderly and meek is the thing. But the Sati story can mislead it all in the absence of some strong reason.

Anashuya  is here just for character delineation and so is Vijaya, but the two like twins as contrasts in studies, as the two divided selves at dialogue with each other arguing and reasoning, submitting and contradicting one by one with their thesis and anti-thesis. To read Anashuya is to be reminded of Aurobondo’s Savitri. To read her is to be reminded of Menaka, Rambha, Urvasie and so on.

The Brahminical order always in search of purity, chastity and virginity, mystery, miracle and morality encourages such a characterization, but can it be possible all the times? Situations and circumstances too play a role n assigning a character. Those who talk of purity, are they pure and chaste from their within? Whatever be that, Anashuya is a link in Savitri, Sati and so on from the ancient point of view. But the case is different from Abhijnanshakuntalam point of view. How to keep if things are adverse, if situations force one?  We should try our utmost best to keep our hearts chaste.

People talk of devotional and divine Mira, lost in Krishnite love, but she faced stiff criticism for her royal lineage, for her yogan attire. It is said, the royals came to offer her a cup of poison and she took it. Sita had to pass the test of the fire ordeal.

But Anashuya is it here, one of Kalidasa and his Abhijnanshakuntalam? The poet draws and derives from. What it is not in Kalidasa’ Anashuya, that is in Yeats who intends on delineating her a bit. But Primyamvada’s part has been assigned to some other as the creation of Yeats.

Actually, he had wished to take two women with one lover, two hearts appearing to be one with one soul in them and they compromising them.

Anashuya And Vijaya is a poem based on the duality of the self, the duality of the heart. The other thing is this that Yeats gave his heart to one, adored her, but she in return gave to another.

Yeats wrote the poem before even when he had not met anyone as Indian allusions and anecdotes to be elaborated and referred to. It was his inward inclination which drew him close to Vedic, Upanishadic and Puranic vision; it was his inner yearning which drew solace from.

Is the discussion a self-to-self talk or a replication of the dialogue in between Anashuya and Priyamvada? The psychology of mind, the purity of feeling, the devotion of heart, what to say it about? How to keep ‘manna’ niscchal manna? How to keep the ‘manna’ free from ‘papa’? How to be chaste and pure from our within? What to say about Anashuya’s love for Vijaya and the romantic ‘manna’ diverting, digressing, transgressing and she checking the supposition and proposition it not with what it may be right or wrong, so whimsical and notion-flirted?

We do not know what does Yeats intend on saying in this poem? Which tale of Anashuya is it herein? The sense of purity, what is it in it? The sense of loyalty, what is it in it? Where does the love of heart take to? How the wings of imagination? Where does the manna go to?

 

The Indian to his Love: Yeats

By: Bijay Kant Dubey 

The island dreams under the dawn

And great boughs drop tranquillity;

The peahens dance on a smooth lawn,

A parrot sways upon a tree,

Raging at his own image in the enamelled sea.

 

Here we will moor our lonely ship

And wander ever with woven hands,

Murmuring softly lip to lip,

Along the grass, along the sands,

Murmuring how far away are the unquiet lands:

 

How we alone of mortals are

Hid under quiet boughs apart,

While our love grows an Indian star,

A meteor of the burning heart,

One with the tide that gleams, the wings that gleam and dart,

 

The heavy boughs, the burnished dove

That moans and sighs a hundred days:

How when we die our shades will rove,

When eve has hushed the feathered ways,

With vapoury footsole by the water's drowsy blaze.

The Indian to His Love as a poem is similar to that one already titled as The Indian Upon God and both the poems are similar in style and penetration barring the thematic variation as because the latter is about how do the Indians see God while the former is all about Indian love-view. What is love? How is it the feeling and emotion of it? How do the Indians take to love?  ‘Amar-prem, nischal prem’, he talks it about, the sacred heart in which dwells it God, internal bonding so full of sympathy and affection. Who loves the soul? Who loves whom by heart, say you? ‘Pavitra mann’, pure inner mind, how many of us have it? As true friendship is rarer so is guileless love. Discard your ‘papa’, sin from your ‘mann’ and try to make your heart purer. This is the lesson which but it gives to, tenders to. Love without any tumult and convulsion he thinks of. But nothing is bereft of smudges. In search of beauty, love and truth, we just keep wandering, craving for.

Poet Yeats has written the poem under the influence of the Indian friends or he himself  has with his thoughts and ideas enjoying the warmth of relationship with in a commemorative way. The influence and mixing with the Orientalists, Sanskritists, Theosophists can also be not denied. Yeats is definitely a link between the Western and the Indian thought and tradition and he has the capacity to synthesize it. This is the reason for which he could not be with Tagore for so long. Even Rudyard Kipling too could not parallel him.

Is Yeats thinking about love in an Indian way or style? Is he feeling about friendship? Or, something different lies it stated in? Is Yeats like Goethe feeling the love of Shakuntala? There is also something of Mira and Radha in it? An Indian to his love or Yeats to his love in an Indian way? Can one not love the heart and the soul?

Let us what does Yeats discuss it here in this poem? By the term the Indian to his love, what does he mean to say? How does the Indian take it love? The island keeps dreaming under the dawn with the great boughs dropping tranquillity. The peahens dance they on a smooth lawn and a parrot too sways upon a tree raging at his own image in the enamelled sea. The parrot of the heart, what to say it about? How to say it when the peahen dances in the inner heart?

Here they will moor their lonely ship and thereafter will keep wandering ever with woven hands, murmuring softly lip to lip, along the grass, along the sands, murmuring how far away are the unquiet lands. Here the poet talks of lust, craze and craving; aspiration, yearning and love, peace and solace. Keeping the ship at bay, they will go for wandering, dreaming, gliding, taking flights and sharing the things of the heart.

How alone are they of mortals hidden under quiet boughs apart! But there is something to learn and feel it within. Their love grows like an Indian star, a meteor of the burning heart. But when the tide comes, it gleams. It may take wings. Why our selves lying apart from? The tides of emotion and passion rise and fall.

Heavy the boughs, when the things come to last, the burnished dove which will sigh  and moan a hundred days. How will be the things when we die, return to nought? Our shades and shadows will rove it when the eve hushes it the feathered ways with vapoury foot sole by the water’s drowsy blaze.

Where will the spirit travel to? The world is vast. Where will the soul keep wandering? Where will the self go? After seeing the scenery and picture, the self reverts to. Say you, what is lovely and beautiful? What does it fare throughout? Outwards appearance and inward appearance are two different aspects to be discerned within. Things of beauty and heart too are similar. The doves of love want to sit together and share with, but what is it love, where is love? How the residues of meaning, the remnants of thought and idea?

 

 

 

 

 

Sailing To Byzantium: WB Yeats

By: Bijay Kant Dubey

The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils Himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me?
  ----Alfred Lord Tennyson in Morte d’ Arthur

Before we read the poem, there grows a desire to know, where does the poet want to go, where this Byzantium is, why does he wish to be away from here? Has he aged? What is it in Byzantium? Is it the Brindavan he is dreaming about? Is it not the spiritual quest taking him there? Perhaps the remnants of Hindu thought and mysticism have not left him behind. Did he write Meru or Byzantium first? When did he study the Upanishads? These are but the questions which appear to be relevant while determining the idea behind the writing of the poem and the accomplishment of it. Had he been to India, it would have been great, but he did not nor did the Indians then. A myth-maker, an occultist, a symbolist of the first order, Yeats is first an Irish poet then an English poet and poetry comes to him as symbolical versions of poesy so full of depth and sobriety, myth and myth-making. Written at the age of 60 or 61, the poem was done in 1926 but it appeared in The Tower in 1928. Even in a BBC talk, he referred to the shaping of his thoughts culminating in the writing of the poem, Sailing to Byzantium and it is not a poem of going to Byzantium, but to think of a new order, to dream and repose in the golden past where he with an artistic bent of mind can think of toning up with undying spirits and poetic vigour. Is it classicism or the imagery of the golden times he wants to revert back to? Why does he want to escape to just like the Keats of Ode to a Nightingale? Where does he like the Wordsworth of Strange Fits of Passion and Lost Love and A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal? Where from the Ireland of political upheavals and repercussions, turmoil and tribulation, strife and struggle to? The position is one of The Ship of Death and Shadows written by D.H.Lawrence.

Sailing To Byzantium, as a poem of rejuvenation, resurrection and transmigration with so much vigour and embellishment muted in, transports us into an old world pervaded by immortality, art and spirit. But what is it immortal? Classicism too has an end of its own. Such a thing it is in The Scholar Gypsy of Matthew Arnold.

Starting with that is no country for the old men, the poet talks of the younger generation in the thoughts and broodings of their own so deep in sensuality and pleasure as if were in one another’s arms, birds in the trees while the dying generations have nothing to say to as the lack lustre itself is picturesque of all that taking place or happening as the things of dust, clay and mortality return back to baser stuffs in due course of time which is again but a natural process.  The young have just the sensuality to talk to and repose in rather than intellectuality, good thought and idea drawing their flavour from classicism and classical times. What is it that sustains us is intellect. What it is born, begotten and living will but cease to exist one day when their time will be over. The present generations lost in the thoughts and ideas of their own have not time to think about the other men so after marking their sensuality, so much engrossed in lust, infatuation with and gratification for, the poet wants to sail and drift to Byzantium where the things age it not and the times too seemingly to be beyond the clutch of mortality and degeneration.

An aged man is but a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick and the mortal dress is not his own so embroidered with mythology which the soul is wearing on for so long. So, what can the soul do except taking the name of the Lord and clapping the hands in His Praise or Glory? It has its own monuments of magnificence. So, where to repose in, where to gather strength, calm and composure from this tumult, clamour perturbing the soul and spirit?

Where the sages standing by the side of the Holy Fire of God? Where do they lie in watching the ceremony? Why do they consume his heart away sick with the desire of man?

Out of sight out of mind, the thing is, once gone from here; never will he be back to. But the Grecian goldsmiths make the things which appear to be everlasting and perennial, never appear to be corroding as such is their artistic beauty, craftsmanship, goldsmithery and casting.

Sailing To Byzantium

I

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees,
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

 II

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium. 

III

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

 IV

 Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come. 

Sailing to Byzantium as a poem is so much symbolical, artistic, mythical and spiritual at the same time we read and go through it as it corroborates the personal and individual thoughts and ideas, images and views of the poet laced with a strong symbolist approach adding depth, meaning and poetic verve to the poem and he wishing to be away from Ireland, from his bodily presence, somewhat shaken in body and strength to an artistic kingdom where death maligns it not, where the golden and classical things hold their sway over and get it not marooned for moral, spiritual and psychic restoration just like as the Hindus think of Vrindavan and the golden bird that was India in the past and so his Byzantium, the Byzantine emperors and the mosaic palaces of it and the immortal artisans, craftsmen, builders building and decorating it. The poem has a mythic base of it, historical, personal and legendary enough to sway the readers to a make-believe story to escape from the harsh realities of life and the world and here lies the distinction between the world of art and dreams and the gap in between the two when contrasted with the realities grounding in elsewhere.

Sailing to Byzantium from Yeats’ The Tower and The Ship of Death from Lawrence’s Last Poems tell a comparative tale to be taken into contrast as the idea is almost the same a shift from the present scenario, a drift from to sail away from here, but Tennyson explains it best by saying it that change is the law of Nature and the things change it here and if they not, as Arthur says it, things will not appear to be congenial. Let us take into consideration the pensive mood of Lawrence here in this poem entitled The Ship of Death where he coaxes to build the ship and to be ready for the journey to undertake. The same escapism it is there in Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale.

I

Now it is autumn and the falling fruit
and the long journey towards oblivion.

 The apples falling like great drops of dew
to bruise themselves an exit from themselves.

 And it is time to go, to bid farewell
to one’s own self, and find an exit
from the fallen self.

 II

 Have you built your ship of death, O have you?
O build your ship of death, for you will need it.

 The grim frost is at hand, when the apples will fall
thick, almost thundrous, on the hardened earth.

 And death is on the air like a smell of ashes!
Ah! can’t you smell it?

And in the bruised body, the frightened soul
finds itself shrinking, wincing from the cold
that blows upon it through the orifices.
     ---- D.H.Lawrence in The Ship of Death

 Where Byzantium? Where the emperors with palaces and mansions, where the golden birds chirping? Where the scholars holding parleys? Where Brindavan? Where Krishna flirting? Where the Vedic, Upanishadic sages chanting? Where Eliot chanting the santih mantras?

An aged man is but a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick and the mortal dress needs to be changed. This can happen only if the soul can sing the song of the Lord, singing and rejoicing in His Glory. Nothing can happen without His Mercy and Grace. Here the impact of the Bhagavadgita and Adi Shankaracharya can be felt in, the immortality of the soul as discussed in the former while eternal birth and eternal death, the cycle of it in Bhajagovindam of the latter. The imagery is beautiful in the sense it is picturesque of an old man with a torn coat lying on a stick.

The holy fires of God and the sages standing and praying to, keeping them as the witness of and invoking the Celestial Spirit and the Celestial Fire he says it all. The Mystical Flames of the Mystical Fire can ordain and purge it all what it ails human flesh and spirit if sought from. But how to lift to higher domains and realms? How to be Shelleyian in spiritual illumination? If they turn into the singing masters of his soul, what it to worry?

 What does the poet mean to say it here? Why does he say to, ‘That is no country for the old men.’? The poet W.B.Yeats, though sick of ageing, times in flux with the order of things, thinks of replacement, regaining of lost vigour and strength after shifting the scenery to Byzantium and its old classical times full of myth and art symbols so golden and undying in spirit.  The young in the arms holding one another’s arms, flanking each other are submerged into the thoughts of their own. Birds in the trees, fish into the waters, all those have their heyday for some time. What it is bodily, physical and material will not last it here. None can escape the dying generations.

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees,
—Those dying generations—at their song, 

Whatever else see we, be that the salmon, the mackerel or anything else is but subject to meet its end. The things which beget and the animals which are born are but destined to meet their ends. The mackerel is a greenish blue sea fish while the salmon too is a ray-finned fish.

The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.

Caught in that sensual music of bonding, affection, lust, infatuation, sympathy, relationship story, we all neglect the monuments of unageing intellect.  Lost in attachment, we forget it the reality waiting for to take us by surprise. What we must discard we fail to do it and so the younger generations lost in affection and attachment, amorous thoughts and ideas keeping their minds engaged. But mankind knows it the pathway end.

Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

 What is an aged man? To the poet, Yeats, the aged man is but a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick. The old man not with the stick, but a tattered coat lying on a stick, basking in the sun as he says in An Acre of Grass, strike us beautifully. Every tatter too is in mortal dress and the soul cannot do but sing the songs of his as there is way for redemption. Human life is also as such that the coat gets changed from time to time, life to life. The covering is as such, nothing permanent here, everything but short-lived and transitory. An aged man, a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick, etc. are but images.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence; 

That is why he has made up his mind to sail for Byzantium and has dawned at:

 And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium. 

But where the pilgrims? Where the Chaurcerian pilgrims? What about the pilgrim’s progress? Is Byzantium really golden and classical? Does pain not maroon it the self? Is it free from human worries, cares and anxieties? Can it really give eternal pleasure?, is the thing of deliberation.

Here the poet speaks about the sages standing in God’s holy fire, the gold mosaic of a wall and the singing-masters of his soul. He invokes them to be his guide, the singing-masters of his soul. The perne, we mean the whirl in a gyre, the vortex, the Holy Fire, etc. are add to the phraseology of the poem which are no doubt Christian, theological and so on.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,        
And be the singing-masters of my soul. 

Here the poet speaks about the heart sick with desire and fastened to a dying animal as it knows it not what it is, how the pathway end. So, he invokes the holy sages to give him strength to be into the artifice of eternity. A man is as long as desire is and when bodily weak, desire too starts leaving him and even if he desires, he will not be able to fulfil them.

Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity. 

The artifice of eternity here stands for something as everlasting, ever beautiful, perennial, immortal and indelible. Byzantium has been used as a myth, a motif and a symbol and the poet seeks to transport us into a make-believe artistic world fostered by classicism and golden times. Art for art’s sake or didactic purpose is the thing under our discussion. If this be, why does he ask to strike at the root of desire? Why is the heart sick of desire? If romanticism is a flight of imagination, fancy, dream, colour and their representation and classicism has always stood for intellectuality, restraint, discipline, didacticism and moral ethics. But here in it the dreams of Byzantium symbolize the journey end leading to artistic perfection.

Once out of physical form, never will one be back in that attire is the accepted truth which but we cannot deny it. But the Grecian goldsmiths make such a thing that it astonishes in giving perennial beauty and art form, a source of everlasting pleasure always after hammering gold and enamelling them. 

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling

These are as such which will keep emperors awake and let them not sleep as for the wonder and splendour to be seen in craftsmanship bejewelling and decorating. The beauty of the golden bird is as such so beautifully crafted and made that it would never corrode easily. 

To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come. 

Sailing to Byzantium is a journey of the soul; a spiritual development of the self engrossed in materialistic pursuits going on a pilgrimage to Byzantium. It is an attempt to escape to re-invigorate and re-make oneself spiritually, morally and aesthetically; it is an explanation of immortality at the expanse of morality and to understand what it lasts for here. The historical background gives a befitting mythical pattern to the poem which tells of transmigration from here to the old ancient city of Byzantium. But what glory is extant therein? None knows it. The golden bird of the golden times singing the golden notes, a source of lasting youth and gaiety, artistic image and imagery, as cast and moulded and framed by the artists take us away from the world of mortality and transience for a make-believe shift for a solace to be thought about temporarily, a Keatsian escape taken with the nightingale’s song and he hearing the sweet notes just like as Wordsworth and Shelley heard the skylarks. But here the design is one of craftsmanship and molten gold cast and embroidered and the palace so full of perennial imagery and decoration, mechanical and artificial seemingly looking natural with the extensive miniature work golden and ornamental. Yeats has aged, but his heart has not, is the thing of deliberation, as an artist never gets old.

 

 

 

The Lake Isle of Innisfree: Yeats

 

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

Where is the lake isle of Innisfree? Why does he want to go there? Is that the scenery and the landscape which but tempts him just like Tintern Abbey of Wordsworth and flashes upon the mind’s plane for a recollection? Or, for some romantic mood and its pensive reflection and the escapist temperament he wants to escape to? What is the matter? Where will he go lastly? What will he after gliding into? But whatever be the poetic ruffle, the crux of it, The Lake Isle of Innisfree is at first instance a poem of tranquil calm, serenity, peace, quietude and solitude. As his days spent in County Sligo, in being attuned to Irish folktales, myths and legends and the occult, Yeats as a poet reposes in the Irish lore and Irishness for a soothing influence away from the humdrum of life, the monotony and drudgery of it.  One from the Anglo-Irish descent, he is a Protestant with a standing of own to contradict and refute to conform. His mind can go nowhere barring Ireland where he was born, where grew up to be man, was educated and reared, felt to feel it personally and privately to reflect upon. The poem is just like Martha of Walter de la Mare, Sea Fever by John Masefield, Look, Stranger by W.H.Auden and Ode On Solitude by Alexander Pope. Away from the circuit of civilization, he wants to move away just like Lawrence writes in Sea and Sardinia and other travelogues. The magic and charm of dream and imagery take him away from. None but a daydreamer or a night dreamer can write such a poem. The dreamy surface and the visionary glide of the poem are marvellous together with the tell-tale narrative and the make believe element inherent in it.

The poet will arise and will go for Innisfree where in the calm surrounding of the lake and the land mass he will build a small cabin made from clay and wattles and will settle to see and observe and nine beans he will plant. A hive for the bees too will be there and he will like to live alone with the bees   hovering around imaginatively and gliding along. The scene is one of pollen scattering and dreamy glides taken. Where does he want to go in search of peace, silence and content?

He will have peace, peace enthralling the heart, peace, all around peace dripping as the drops of dew or honey. The peace of mind, the peace of heart, the peace of soul, it is all that he seeks for and he will feel complacent. It takes time to settle and to be at peace and so is the atmosphere and environment of Innisfree, the landscape and scenery of it. The morning time and its silence, the mist uncovering and the light getting visible, the start of day with a freshness of its own, how to take to?

Wherever he goes to, he carries with him the imagery of the water dripping, spilling from the shore to the lake with a flow, murmur and babble of own. He may not be there, but the music still does for him. He has not forgotten the images and landscapes seen and enjoyed as they remain still captured in his heart, the images restored in. The album of Innisfree, the still photos taken and snapped, he cannot forget them poetically. He may be away from in his busy life of dull routines and schedules, but his heart still goes to Innisfree to draw the inspiration from. The midnight is but a glimmer and the noon a purple glow and the evening a linnet’s wings.

Sometimes man confides in nature to get the inner counsel and wisdom. Silence has also the notes of its own. This is what constitutes his soul which is lodged in the body. Nowhere can man find joy besides the beauties and bounties of nature which are but a permanent source of happiness and the   other thing is this that man is but an indivisible part of nature. The mind recomposes itself in silence and silence gives consent. The poem if to see it otherwise reminds us of The Brook by Alfred Lord Tennyson. The poetic pictures take us to the description of Lucy half-hidden from the world just like a daisy by the mossy rock in Lost Love. There is something of dream allegory as well as dream sequence in it.

The Irish setting and the Irish background give a befitting imagery to the poem as the natural scenery is pictorial and scenic no doubt in evoking scenes, pictures and images. There is music in the words which is so captivating and charming enough. Without knowing Innisfree one may not do justice to the poem and if one can explain it, everything will be clear to us.