W. B. Yeats’ final poem, ‘The Black Tower’, is dated one week before his death on the 28th January 1939. The poem contains multiple layers of interwoven memories that stem from a particular moment that demonstrates its lasting impact on Yeats. He lived through a period of major violence within Ireland and uses this last poem as a means to commemorate those who died. The Easter Rising, which took place from the 24th to the 29th of April 1916, had a profound impact on Yeats both personally and artistically. He knew several of the leaders of the Rising and was shocked to hear of the executions of the signatories of the Proclamation. During the following years, Ireland was engaged in the War of Independence (1919-21) and the Civil War (1922-23). In October 1922, during the Civil War, Yeats wrote that those who partook in the Rising “were the bomb & we are living in the explosion”, a statement that demonstrates the lasting memory of 1916.[1] His memory of the 1916 leaders, such as Patrick Pearse, a short story writer, schoolmaster, and one of the signatories, is not restricted to this response to the Rising.
‘Easter, 1916’ was written between May and September 1916, but was not published until 1921. The poet depicts himself as having been at least an acquaintance of those he intends to memorialise in the poem, describing any meetings as passing or as sharing ‘meaningless words’.[2] He continues, saying that they were ‘certain’ that all was well.[3] Suddenly, however, ‘[a]ll changed, changed utterly’.[4] With the exception of Countess Constance Markievicz, all of those individuals that the poem references were executed. Yeats was personally shocked by this, believing that they would be imprisoned and he described himself as having “been a good deal shaken by Dublin events”.[5] What emerges from this sudden and complete change is a period of violence that lasted for several years. With the memory of those who he knew or was at least acquainted with coupled with the violence that took place as a result of the Rising, Yeats continues to keep that memory with him and writes a final memorial poem, ‘The Black Tower’.
As previously stated, this poem combines both personal and artistic memories, and towers in particular are an important symbol for Yeats. He drew images of towers and included them in several poems, even titling his 1928 collection of poetry The Tower. The title of his 1933 collection, The Winding Stair, refers to the winding staircase within his own home, a medieval tower near Coole, County Galway that he purchased in 1916. With the help of an architect, he spent several years renovating it until moving in with his family in 1921. He renamed the tower Thoor Ballylee and the family spent their summers there until 1929. This personal symbol is one that he incorporates in his commemoration of the 1916 leaders by using it as a physical memorial for those who died and enshrining them within it in a state of living death.
‘The Black Tower’ demonstrates that the memory of those who died during this period of unprecedented violence continues to impact Yeats. The tower, a physical memorial, serves as their tomb, in which the soldiers ‘stand upright’, unmoving except when their bones shake when the wind rises.[6] They exist in a state of living death. For example, while the poet refers to them as being dead, they also ‘slumber’ and need sustenance; a cook must catch birds and they ‘feed’ without pleasure or enjoyment.[7] They also refer to themselves as ‘hale men’, the adjective here meaning that they are strong and, in some capacity, full of life.[8] As they are not entirely dead, they continue to feel a connection to life because men they ‘oath-bound’ to remain guarding the tower.[9] Even in their suspended existence, their living death, these soldiers continue to honour the oath they took in life. They are bound by the memory of making it and it is this memory that keeps them in this state of living death.
When a battle looms for possession of the tower, the enemy soldiers mock them for honouring their oath in death. In the third stanza, they accuse the tower soldiers of forgetting their king, saying, ‘Who, when his own right king’s forgotten,/Cares what king sets up his rule’.[10] The dead do not remain for their king; rather they remain because of the memory of swearing an oath to guard the tower. They then ask the tower soldiers, ‘If he died long ago/Why do you dread us so’.[11] They have no reason to remain in the tower except for the sake of adhering to memory. The cook also attempts to lure them out of the tower, not to engage in conflict, but because he ‘[s]wears that he hear the king’s great horn’, implying that the king is, in fact, alive. They accuse him of lying and they reaffirm their oath to remain inside the tower.[12] Like the soldiers, those individuals, the leaders in ‘Easter, 1916’ all have, as the poet says, ‘one purpose alone’.[13]
While the exact amount of time that has passed is not stated in the poem, given that the soldiers in the tower are in a suspended state between life and death as well as the description of the black tower as being ‘old’, it is reasonable to infer that the soldiers have been here for a number of years – long enough that their bones are exposed and that they have forgotten their king.[14] The use of the adjective ‘hale’ also implies that they are from an older point in time. They remain in honour of the memory of swearing an oath as Yeats honours the memory of the 1916 leaders years onward. Even near the end of his own life he demonstrates that this memory continues to have a profound impact on him. The leaders of the Rising knew that it would likely fail, yet they committed themselves to it. Most of them, including Pearse, were stationed at Dublin’s GPO, the seat of the action, and remained inside even as it burned and collapsed around them. The tower’s soldiers commit themselves to a specific site as well, refusing to leave even when they are mocked for their decision.
While this memorial is meant to commemorate them in a positive way, it does also serve as something of, as Rob Doggett says, ‘a cautionary reminder’.[15] As previously discussed, Yeats lived through a period of intense, unprecedented violence in Ireland that stemmed as a direct result of the 1916 Rising. Throughout ‘Easter, 1916’, the poet repeats that ‘all changed’ and that ‘a terrible beauty is born’.[16] Something that is at once beautiful and terrifying emerges from the memory of this event and it causes a continued return to the past. Yeats, even near the end of his life, returns to 1916 and the memory of those who were executed a little over twenty years prior to his writing ‘The Black Tower’. The soldiers who refuse to abandon this tower because of the memory of their sworn oath are stagnant not only in being fixed to this specific location, but also because they persist in honouring the memory of a king they cannot even remember. They are very much a part of the past and cannot move forward, be that in time or to the grave. Their memory restricts them and preoccupies them as does Yeats’ own memory of the Rising. Needless to say, this was not Yeats’ sole preoccupation; he continued writing about different subjects and incorporating different artistic and personal interests in that writing. It is telling, however, that his last poem chooses to return to a memory that was national, personal, and had major repercussions.
These poems reflect the memory of the Rising’s executed leaders and the titular black tower is Yeats’ memorial dedicated to them. This memory is at once personal and artistic; Yeats knew some of these men, like Pearse, and he deemed this memory worthy of commemoration not only shortly after the Rising in ‘Easter, 1916’, but also in ‘The Black Tower’, a poem written more than twenty years after the fact. Like the soldiers in the tower, the leaders remain present within memory even in death and with the passage of time. The soldiers remain in the Black Tower, thus keeping alive the memory of the oath that they fought for in life even though they are mocked for doing so. The poet’s purpose is to memorialise those who knowingly sacrificed themselves in a final push to free Ireland from colonial rule while also drawing attention to the stagnant nature of this memory.
The Black Tower
Say that the men of the old black tower,
Though they but feed as the goatherd feeds,
Their money spent, their wine gone sour,
Lack nothing that a soldier needs,
That all are oath-bound men:
Those banners come not in.
There in the tomb stand the dead upright,
But winds come up from the shore:
They shake when the winds roar,
Old bones upon the mountain shake.
Those banners come to bribe or threaten,
Or whisper that a man’s a fool
Who, when his own right king’s forgotten,
Cares what king sets up his rule.
If he died long ago
Why do you dread us so?
There in the tomb drops the faint moonlight,
But wind comes up from the shore:
They shake when the winds roar,
Old bones upon the mountain shake.
The tower’s old cook that must climb and clamber
Catching small birds in the dew of the morn
When we hale men lie stretched in slumber
Swears that he hears the king’s great horn.
But he’s a lying hound:
Stand we on guard oath-bound!
There in the tomb the dark grows blacker,
But wind comes up from the shore:
They shake when the winds roar,
Old bones upon the mountain shake.
21 January 1939
Maureen Deleo is a second-year PhD student in the School of English at NUI Galway. Her current research examines Mother Ireland as a being rather than as an intangible construct in early 20th century Irish literature. She has previously published on Yeats and his incorporation of the Tarot in ‘The Wild Swans at Coole’.
[1] Roy Foster, W.B. Yeats: A Life. Vol. 2.Oxford UP, Oxford. 2003. Pg 226. The letter is dated 6 October 1922.
[2] W. B. Yeats, ‘Easter, 1916’ in The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. Wordsworth Editions Limited: Ware, Hertfordshire, 2008. Lines 6, 8.
[3] Ibid., l. 13.
[4] Ibid., l. 15.
[5] Foster, W.B. Yeats: A Life. Vol. 2. Pg 46.
[6] W. B. Yeats, ‘The Black Tower’ in The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. Wordsworth Editions Limited: Ware, Hertfordshire, 2008. Lines 5-10.
[7] Ibid., l. 21-3.
[8] Ibid., l. 23.
[9] Ibid. l. 5.
[10] Ibid., l. 13-4.
[11] Ibid., l. 15-6.
[12] Ibid., l. 24-5.
[13] ‘Easter, 1916’, l. 41.
[14] ‘The Black Tower’, l. 1.
[15] Doggett, Rob. Deep-Rooted Things: Empire and Nation in the Poetry and Drama of William Butler Yeats. University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, Indiana. 2006. Pg. 153.
[16] ‘Easter, 1916’, l. 16.
Image credit for featured image: La tourelle abandonnée, L’Artiste, 4e série — tome IV, Paris: Bureaux de L’Artiste, 1845 via Old Books Illustrations
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