William Butler Yeats
The
Sorrow of Love
THE brawling of a sparrow in the eaves,
The brilliant moon and all the milky sky,
And all that famous harmony of leaves,
Had blotted out man's image and his cry.
A girl arose that had red mournful lips
And seemed the greatness of the world in tears,
Doomed like Odysseus and the labouring ships
And proud as Priam murdered with his peers;
Arose, and on the instant clamorous eaves,
A climbing moon upon an empty sky,
And all that lamentation of the leaves,
Could but compose man's image and his cry.
http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/yeats01.html
Ephemera
'Your eyes that once were never weary of
mine
Are bowed in sorrow under pendulous lids,
Because our love is waning.'
And then she:
'Although our love is waning, let us
stand
By the long border of the lake once more,
Together in that hour of gentleness
When the poor tired child, Passion, falls asleep:
How far away the stars seem, and how far
Is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart!'
Pensive they paced along the faded
leaves,
While slowly he whose hand held hers replied:
'Passion has often worn our wandering hearts.'
The woods were round them, and the
yellow leaves
Fell like faint meteors in the gloom, and once
A rabbit old and lame limped down the path;
Autumn was over him: and now they stood
On the lone border of the lake once more:
Turning, he saw that she had thrust dead leaves
Gathered in silence, dewy as her eyes,
In bosom and hair.
'Ah, do not mourn,' he said,
'That we are tired, for other loves
await us;
Hate on and love through unrepining hours.
Before us lies eternity; our souls
Are love, and a continual farewell.'
http://www.tear.com/poems/yeats/8.html
In the following essay I have compared William Butler Yeats´ poems “Ephemera” and “The Sorrow of Love”.
“Ephemera” is a poem composed by 5 stanzas, it has no rhyme. It is presented as a dialogue between a couple. He starts saying that their love is waning. Then, she asks him to stay by the border of the lake once more, they do so. And at the end, he concludes asking her not to cry, because there are more loves waiting for them. Also, he says that their souls will always love each other.
So, this poem is about a farewell between two lovers. It seems that they have been together for a long time; the repetition of once proves that (your eyes that once, by the long border of the lake once more). This also presents things as far away from the present moment, as things that they used to do in the past.
After all the time being together, passion has ended and now they see how also love is waning. They know that this process has no return, and love would not come back again. So, they decide to break up. This is the moment when both speak about it, but it is not a surprise for any of them. Both are aware that this moment would arrive.
The man seems to be more decided and also more positive. She seems sadder, and also cries. He tells her the positive aspect of the change and that it would be better for both.
She asks him to do a last thing together: to go to the border of a lake. It seems to be something that they usually did. This border of the lake; also represents the situation they are in at that moment. They have arrived at the border of their relationship. Their way together has ended.
Nature is an important element in the poem. It surrounds them; it can also be associated with an ending. It is autumn, the leaves are falling. This season is associated with old age, almost death; as their love is.
The love of these lovers is symbolised by the tired child, the faded and yellow leaves and also by the old and lame rabbit. All the adjectives that qualify the child, the leaves and the rabbit, can qualify their love.
After analysing the poem, we see that the title refers to how ephemeral love is, it has an ending. Also life and nature are ephemeral.
“The Sorrow of Love” is composed by gle stanza of 12 verses; it can be divided in 3 quartets, the rhyme scheme is : abab cdcd abab
There is a parallelism between the first quartet and the third, the last words of each verse coincide (eaves, sky, leaver, cry).
The poem talks about a man that forgets about about everything that surrounds him. In his mind there is only a girl. All the environment, he does not pay attention to, serves only as a scenery.
Even if it is a short poem, it says very much about love. Concretely about the sorrow of love, as the title of the poem says. It describes that when a man loves a women, he forgets about everything else. Nothing else matters for him. What is in his mind is the image of the girl, and he does not see the wonderful things that surround him.
In the case of the man of the poem, he is crying for his love. He is in his own world, lamenting the lost love or the love that he cannot have.
So, these two poems have very much in common. Both talk about love, but love not as a happy thing, not with a happy ending. In both poems, love has an ending, is something ephimeral. In the case of “The Sorrow of Love” we do not know if the man´s love has been corresponded any time, but it seems that something has finished for the man.
Also in both poems, nature is very much present. It is the environment that surrounds them. In “Ephemera”, nature is a parallelism of the break up of the couple; but in “The Sorrow of Love”, nature is something beautiful that the lover does not pay attention to.
This presence of nature can represent that the ending of love, as love itself is, is something natural. It is something that is supposed to end someday, not last forever.
The ephemeral characteristic of love deals with the time. Time goes by, it is also something predetermined, time cannot be stoped.
In “The Sorrow of Love” the poem presents a scene of how sad it can be to be in love. In “Ephemera” the farewell of a couple is described, but it gives us a kind of conclusion. It says that although a relationship ends, there will be more loves. Life is full of continuous loves, and also of continuous farewells.
The title of one poem could also entitled the other poem. Because both titles that describe the poem, could also describe the other poem. In “Ephemera” we see the sorrow of love, it is seen in the sadness of the woman for the separation. In “The Sorrow of Love” we see how ephimeral good times are, and bad ones arrive.
These two poems have also the fact in common that they deal with time and nature. These elements are presented in both poems. So after reading the poems, one gets more or less the same idea. Both have the same meaning and with them the author wants to say the same. Maybe they are about personal experiences of Yeats; but these are so general themes that these cannot have hapenned to him.
So, both poems deal with love themes, but concretely with the ending of love. In these cases Yeats writes the negative part of love, the ephimeral character. Also it is presented as a kind of life law, that human beings have to accept. They cannot fight against their destiny.