PHOEBE TROTT
Yeats Poetry Comparison: Comparing September 1913 and The Cold Heaven
Yeats’s September 1913 was written as an angry comment on the rejection of the 3rd Home Rule Bill
by English parliament in 1913. The rejection of this bill led to a sense that Ireland would never be
free of England’s hold over Irish affairs. September 1913 was published in 1916, at the time of the
Easter rising and much English brutality toward Irish social unrest, meaning Yeats was looking back
on the events of 1913 from a much more violent and troubled time in Irish history. Published in
1914, Yeats’s The Cold Heaven was also released at a time of political turbulence in Ireland, after the
breakout of the First World War, and with the 1916 uprising on the horizon. However, The Cold
Heaven focusses less on the political dissatisfaction of the speaker and more on the dissatisfaction
they feel in their personal life, looking back at the pain and intensity of youth and love, finding no
answers to their questions and questioning instead what remains of life once lived and whether
there is any afterlife. Yeats was at this time not only dealing with the political unrest in Ireland but
also trying to come to terms with the fact that his love for Maude Gonne would forever remain
unrequited, leading to a turbulent time for him emotionally.
The Cold Heaven focusses on emotion rather than reason, as reflected in its form. Almost the entire
poem is told as one long sentence, uncontrolled by end-stopped lines and with frequent use of
enjambment. This creates a sense of an emotional outpouring, of an overflow of feelings built up
over time; a sense of release after suppression, represented by the lack of regular, controlled form.
September 1913, on the other hand, has a regular tetrameter and each stanza (with the exception of
the last) ends with the line ‘Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone’. The regularity of form and meter, as
well as the repeated refrain, makes this poem seem as if it is being told in the form of a traditional
Irish ballad. Ballads were told orally, and passed down through the generations; Yeats, it seems,
want the story of the rebels in September 1913 to go down in history and never be forgotten. These
rebels are made into hero figures, to be revered and remembered for years to come. The change in
refrain evident in the last line, where Yeats switches ‘Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone’ for ‘but let
them be’, seems to signify a sense of resignation; a sense that it would be futile to try and cultivate
the spark of rebellion into a flame.
The language in The Cold Heaven is, in the words of James Pethica, ‘ornate and visionary’; it is
archaic (in the use of words such as ‘thereupon’, for example) and revelatory; making the poem
appear almost prophetic. An example of such visionary language can be seen in the mention of
‘ghosts’, conjuring up supernatural and mystical imagery. There is, in addition to the paranormal
element of the poem, also a more religious one. The line ‘suddenly I saw the cold and rookdelighting heaven’ could relate to the Celtic myth of a frozen heaven; Yeats often wrote about Celtic
myths and legends, so would be likely to draw on the traditional Celtic interpretation of heaven. The
rooks that reside there seem to be an ironic parody of angels, as they are black, a stark opposite to
the white, symbolic of purity, which is usually associated with the creatures that dwell in the
heavens. This could be to draw attention to the possible contrast of Celtic heaven against the Celtic
Hell, the Vision of Fis Adamnan, in the next line, as Yeats describes ice which ‘burned and was but
more the ice’. This impossibility could relate not only to Yeats’s own painful internal confliction as he
struggled with the harsh ‘burning cold’ sensation on rejection, as if the world made no sense to him
in his seemingly endless emotionally turbulent state, but also to the traditional Celtic Hell which
included both punishment by fire and punishment by cold. In fact, punishment by cold featured in
many traditional Celtic ghost stories; numerous Celtic ghosts were supposedly plagued by cold in the
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afterlife. The emotional rawness of the poem is linked to the first person narrative of the poem as
this makes it seem intimate and almost like a private conversation shared between speaker and
reader, as if, as a reader, one experiences the speaker’s most intimate thoughts and feelings. It
reveals much emotional vulnerability, for example in the line ‘I cried and trembled and rocked to and
fro, the reader is allowed a raw, gritty, no-holds-barred look at the bare emotional state of the
speaker.
Where The Cold Heaven appears Biblical, September 1913 is more political. The latter is still
descriptive and uses devices such a similes, for example when describing the rebels in the poem as
‘gone about the world like wind’, but is a comment on history, a story being passed on to inspire and
provoke, rather than a way for the poet to analyse and wrestle with his own confused and conflicting
feelings. The language is less ornate and visionary, and more down to Earth; the tone is not
revelatory and spiritual, but rather sorrowful and reflective. It is still an emotional poem; the tone
changes from stanza to stanza and the reader is taken through a variety of different, often draining,
emotions as the poet expresses them. In the first stanza, the tone is scornful and mocking, as the
speaker bitterly spurns the modern Irish society and its materialism and narrow religious orthodoxy.
He holds in contempt the way people assign so much value to worldly possessions and money,
describing them as ‘fumbling in greasy tills’, an image that conjures up images of an ugly, desperate,
grasping greed. The line ‘Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, it’s with O’Leary in the grave’ at the end
of stanza not only makes clear and final that the speaker believes that the materialistic Irish culture
is the reason for the death of ‘Romantic Ireland’, a more open-minded and less money-orientated
Ireland, but also that these same money-grabbing people are also responsible for the deaths of such
Irish nationalists as John O’Leary, whom Yeats admired. The phrase ‘dead and gone’ makes it clear
that there will be no resurrection, that the death is final. As in The Cold Heaven, there is also in this
poem links to religion, however here it is scorned by Yeats as ‘prayer to shivering prayer’, in the first
stanza, making clear that prayer will not save romantic Ireland, and is the cowardly option, to pray
instead of act. In the second stanza, prayer is also spurned, as when speaking of the rebels Yeats
says ‘but little time had they to pray’, suggesting that they, as brave heroes, acted instead of merely
praying. The tone of this stanza is different to the first; nostalgic and reflective as the actions and
legacies of the rebels is mused on, as well as the power they had, to ‘go about the world like wind’
with names that ‘stilled childish play. They are immortalised here as heroes, who could have
restored Romantic Ireland. The tone of the third stanza becomes disappointed and disenchanted as
the futility of the rebels’ actions is revealed. The phrase ‘wild geese’ is used, suggesting perhaps a
pointless exercise that could never realistically be fulfilled. It could also be seen as a representation
of the Irish people who emigrated across the globe to escape the political oppression in their home
country. In the fourth and final stanza, the tone turns to a sorrowful wistfulness; an almost apathetic
acceptance of the events of September 1913 and the fight for Irish freedom overall. A ‘woman’s
yellow hair’ is described here, possibly a reference to Cathleen-ni-Houlihan, a mythical female figure
who traditionally symbolises Ireland. This surreal and mythical imagery can be linked back to such
supernatural and mythical language found in The Cold Heaven.
Both poems touch on the ideas of the memory of the past, and the desire for change. In The Cold
Heaven, it could be argued that the speaker is trapped in a world of memory, describing the ‘hot
blood of youth’ and ‘love crossed long ago’, linking to them the way they ‘cried and trembled’ in a
way that suggests the emotions evoked by these memories are something the speaker desires to
change and escape from. In September 1913, the speaker wishes to restore the memory of
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‘Romantic Ireland’ to reality, to the present, and change the current materialistic and narrow
religious orthodoxy of modern Irish society.
Both poems also deal with the theme of mortality. September 1913 is an account of the deaths of
Irish Nationalist rebels ‘for whom the hangman’s rope was spun’ who died martyrs fighting for their
country; although they are dead, the speaker makes their story known, painting them as noble and
heroic and ensuring they will not be forgotten, that their deaths mean something to future
generations and that their brave sacrifice was not in vain. The Cold Heaven also questions what life
means after it is lived, making the reader question what their own life means and how to make it
mean something, how to feel fulfilled and comfortable in how they have lived. In addition, The Cold
Heaven questions what happens after death; whether there will be an afterlife, how we are judged,
and by whom: ‘when the ghost begins to quicken...is it sent out naked on the roads...and stricken by
the injustice of the skies for punishment?’
In conclusion, similar themes run through both September 1913 and The Cold Heaven as although
they both touch on various issues, they were both written at times when Yeats was disillusioned
with various aspects of his life, be they political or romantic.