Song of the Old Mother
By W. B. Yeats
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Each title of the poem contains a link to BBC Bitesize
video reading of it
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Song of the Old Mother
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Themes:
Age and youth
The passage of time
Life linked to nature
Are there any others?
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Key Terms:
First Person
Rhyming Couplets
Contrast
(juxtaposition)
Repetition
Assonance
Alliteration
Metaphor
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William Butler Yeats
• William Butler Yeats was born in Ireland in 1865.
• His father and brother were famous painters, but
Yeats concentrated on literature, poetry in
particular
• He was interested in History and Irish culture
• He was also fascinated by the lower/working
classes and “the old Mother” is certainly from
this social sphere
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3
an old woman complaining of the idleness of the young
The Song of the Old Mother
'I rise in the dawn, and I kneel and blow
Till the seed of the fire flicker and glow;
And then I must scrub and bake and sweep
The
thoughts
of an old
woman
comparing
her day of
work to
that of the
idle young
girls she
sees
Till stars are beginning to blink and peep;
And the young lie long and dream in their bed
Of the matching of ribbons for bosom and head,
And their day goes over in idleness,
She gets up
at dawn to
light the fire,
wash,
prepare
food and
sweep up.
Who for?
Her family
or her
employers?
And they sigh if the wind but lift a tress:
While I must work because I am old,
And the seed of the fire gets feeble and cold.'
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Whose
children are
the young
girls?
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The poem is in the first person, making it the personal and private (and therefore
honest?) thoughts of the speaker.
The Song of the Old Mother
She spends all
day working from
when the fire is
built to when it
dies. This implies
the constant
repetitive nature
of the mother’s
life. The
repetition of the
‘seeds’ metaphor
stresses the
circular nature of
her day
'I rise in the dawn, and I kneel and blow
Till the seed of the fire flicker and glow;
And then I must scrub and bake and sweep
Till stars are beginning to blink and peep;
And the young lie long and dream in their bed
The young
sleep in and
relax through
their day
thinking about
unimportant
things such as
ribbons and
their hair.
Of the matching of ribbons for bosom and head,
And their day goes over in idleness,
And they sigh if the wind but lift a tress:
While I must work because I am old,
And the seed of the fire gets feeble and cold.'
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The ease of
their lives is in
contrast to
(juxtaposes)
the difficulty of
the old
woman’s life
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Most lines are ten syllables long
The Song of the Old Mother
'I rise in the dawn, and I kneel and blow
Till the seed of the fire flicker and glow;
And then I must scrub and bake and sweep
The poem is
almost a
square;
roughly ten by
ten.
Till stars are beginning to blink and peep;
Ten lines
And the young lie long and dream in their bed
Of the matching of ribbons for bosom and head,
And their day goes over in idleness,
And they sigh if the wind but lift a tress:
While I must work because I am old,
It has been
suggested that
this may
represent the
rigidity and
regularity of
her day
And the seed of the fire gets feeble and cold.'
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Simple rhyme scheme reflects childish nursery rhymes.
Could this be ironic as it is childhood that the mother is
both criticising and jealous of?
Rhyming couplets:
AA,BB,CC,DD,EE
The Song of the Old Mother
The poem starts
and ends with a
half-rhyme
(‘blow’ and
‘cold’) once
again stressing
the circular,
regular nature of
her daily life
'I rise in the dawn, and I kneel and blow
A
Till the seed of the fire flicker and glow;
A
And then I must scrub and bake and sweep
B
Till stars are beginning to blink and peep;
B
And the young lie long and dream in their bed
C
Of the matching of ribbons for bosom and head,
C
And their day goes over in idleness,
D
And they sigh if the wind but lift a tress:
D
While I must work because I am old,
E
And the seed of the fire gets feeble and cold.'
E
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Language is simple, mostly mono-syllabic which links to the simple life of
the mother and the simplicity of the tasks she must undertake
Repeated
structure again
emphasises the
repetitive
nature of the
work
The Song of the Old Mother
'I rise in the dawn, and I kneel and blow
Till the seed of the fire flicker and glow;
And then I must scrub and bake and sweep
Till stars are beginning to blink and peep;
And the young lie long and dream in their bed
Stress pattern
emphasises the
physical,
difficult nature
of the work
Of the matching of ribbons for bosom and head,
Line 2 and
10 mirror
one
another.
What does
this
emphasise?
And their day goes over in idleness,
And they sigh if the wind but lift a tress:
While I must work because I am old,
And the seed of the fire gets feeble and cold.'
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‘seed’ may refer to children; where are the mother’s children?
Grown up? Are they the idle young girls?
The Song of the Old Mother
The fire is a
metaphor for
life. The
mother’s life
starts in the
morning with
the building of
the fire.
The fire
becomes
‘feeble and
cold’ in much
the same way
as the mother
is becoming
feeble and old
'I rise in the dawn, and I kneel and blow
The alliteration of
the ‘l’ sounds
stresses the
laziness in which
the girls spend
their days
Till the seed of the fire flicker and glow;
And then I must scrub and bake and sweep
Till stars are beginning to blink and peep;
And the young lie long and dream in their bed
Of the matching of ribbons for bosom and head,
And their day goes over in idleness,
And they sigh if the wind but lift a tress:
While I must work because I am old,
Soft rhyme
emphases the
ease of the
days for the
young girls
And the seed of the fire gets feeble and cold.'
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Stars may link to fire, burning in the sky and
governing the mother’s day
The Song of the Old Mother
'I rise in the dawn, and I kneel and blow
Till the seed of the fire flicker and glow;
And then I must scrub and bake and sweep
Till stars are beginning to blink and peep;
And the young lie long and dream in their bed
Of the matching of ribbons for bosom and head,
And their day goes over in idleness,
And they sigh if the wind but lift a tress:
While I must work because I am old,
And the seed of the fire gets feeble and cold.'
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10
What is the tone/mood of the poem? How should it be read?
The Song of the Old Mother
Wishing,
regretful, as if
the old woman
wishes she
could be like the
young women?
'I rise in the dawn, and I kneel and blow
Till the seed of the fire flicker and glow;
And then I must scrub and bake and sweep
Till stars are beginning to blink and peep;
And the young lie long and dream in their bed
Sadly and
resignedly, as
if the old
woman regrets
that her life
has been like
this but knows
she never had
the option of
changing it?
Bitterly, as if
the old woman
is angry that
her life has
been so hard
compared to
the lives of the
young women?
Of the matching of ribbons for bosom and head,
And their day goes over in idleness,
And they sigh if the wind but lift a tress:
While I must work because I am old,
And the seed of the fire gets feeble and cold.'
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How would it
be read if the
girls are her
children?
How if they’re
not?
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Comparison
Catrin Clarke
Digging Heaney
•Both poems use the voice of the Mother,
but...
•Both poems are written in the 1st
person, but ...
•Yeats has imagined a fictional person,
while in Catrin it is Clarke's own voice
describing a real relationship with her child.
•Heaney writes about his own father,
while Yeats writes about an imaginary
Mother.
•Both poems deal with feelings of conflict
between the generations, which in Catrin is
seen as normal and joyous: "From the
heart's pool that old rope .. trailing love and
conflict".
•Like Yeats, Heaney emphasises the
hard working life of that generation: his
father is digging, straining and
heaving.
•The Clarke poem is much freer in form
than The Song.
•Does this difference suggest anything
about how the two poems see
motherhood?
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•Heaney's poem is very affectionate,
showing his love for his father. The
Mother in contrast is resentful of the
young.
Can you think of any other possible
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comparisons?
Review task
“I must work because I’m old” line 9
To what extent do you agree with this statement?
Is it still relevant and true today?
• Note down the poet’s attitudes in the poem
towards the old mother. Match them with
the points below
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•The old woman's day is very regimented. The strong, regular rhythm throughout
the poem indicates both the sameness of her days and the monotony of what she
has to do.
•Her work is very physical. She uses strong, plain-sounding verbs to describe her
work: kneel, blow, scrub, bake, sweep, which contrasts to the light, airy verbs
applied to the young: lie, dream, sigh.
•She uses childish language when she personifies the stars to blink and peep.
Maybe this is because the appearance of the stars is a chance for her to relax at
last and escape the rigours of her day.
•She seems jealous of the young. She compares her life of work to their lives of
idleness: the young women with nothing more to fill their days than worry about
their ribbons.
•Is the old woman mocking the young who have nothing more to complain about
than the wind disarranging their hair OR is she quietly regretful, wishing that she
has no more to worry about than they do?
•It is sad that she has to work because she is old: we wonder what happened to her
when she was younger to make hard work a necessity for her now. It is poignant
that she does not seem to question her lot.
•The last line shows the old woman's real feelings. The fire she refers to is her own
life - and it is getting feeble and cold. ThisFsuggests that she does not have long 14
left
to live: her fire will soon go out.