“Broken Dreams”
by
William
“Eyes that Last I saw in
Tears”
by
Thomas Stearns Eliot
BROKEN
DREAMS
THERE is grey in your
hair.
Young men no longer
suddenly catch their breath
When you are passing;
But maybe some old
gaffer mutters a blessing
Because it was your
prayer
Recovered him upon the
bed of death.
For your sole sake -
that all heart's ache have known,
And given to others
all heart's ache,
From meagre girlhood's
putting on
Burdensome beauty -
for your sole sake
Heaven has put away
the stroke of her doom,
So great her portion
in that peace you make
By merely walking in a
room.
Your beauty can but
leave among us
Vague memories,
nothing but memories.
A young man when the
old men are done talking
Will say to an old
man, "Tell me of that lady
The poet stubborn with
his passion sang us
When age might well
have chilled his blood.'
Vague memories,
nothing but memories,
But in the grave all,
all, shall be renewed.
The certainty that I
shall see that lady
Leaning or standing or
walking
In the first
loveliness of womanhood,
And with the fervour
of my youthful eyes,
Has set me muttering
like a fool.
You are more beautiful
than any one,
And yet your body had
a flaw:
Your small hands were
not beautiful,
And I am afraid that
you will run
And paddle to the
wrist
In that mysterious,
always brimming lake
Where those What have
obeyed the holy law
paddle and are
perfect. Leave unchanged
The hands that I have
kissed,
For old sake's sake.
The last stroke of
midnight dies.
All day in the one chair
From dream to dream
and rhyme to rhyme I have
ranged
In rambling talk with
an image of air:
Vague memories,
nothing but memories.
http://www.online-literature.com/yeats/813/
Eyes
that last I saw in tears
Through division
Here in death's dream kingdom
The golden vision reappears
I see the eyes but not the tears
This is my affliction
This
is my affliction
Eyes I shall not see again
Eyes of decision
Eyes I shall not see unless
At the door of death's other kingdom
Where, as in this,
The eyes outlast a little while
A little while outlast the tears
And hold us in derision.
http://www.cise.ufl.edu/
hsiao/verse/eyes.html
COMMENTARY
First of all, this commentary is going to focus on two
poems, the first one that I am going to treat is “Broken Dreams” by
William
These two poems, “Broken Dreams” and
“Eyes that last I saw in tears”, were written by different authors,
but they have similarities and at the same time both poems have differences.
“Broken Dreams” and “Eyes that last
I saw in tears” seem on the surface to be about a person that is talking
to a woman. The poems refer to the same issue which is the passing of time.
Both poems remember past images of a woman, emphasized with the passing of
time. Both speakers of both poems have the same thought: when women, who they
are addressing to, arrive to heaven; I mean once women have died and they go to
heaven, they will have returned to their youth. Both poems make constant
references to the aspect of time during the whole duration of the poems.
In the
poem written by Yeats “Broken Dreams”, the speaker will see the
beauty again that she had been when she was young. We could observe this in the
third stanza, in line 21, when the speaker says: “But in the grave all,
all, shall be renewed.”. Also we can observe it when the author makes
allusion to: “… paddle and are perfect…” in the fourth
stanza, in line 34.
In the
other poem written by Eliot, “Eyes that last I saw in tears” the
speaker will see the eyes without tears, maybe she will be happy, the speaker
says: “Here in death’s dream kingdom/ The golden vision
reappears”, we can observe it in the first stanza, in lines 3-4.
As we can find in both poems, the poets have the same
idea, they will return to see them in the other kingdom. The reincarnation of
the beauty when a person dies could be a sentence that summarizes, more or
less, the idea of both poets. William
The meaning in both poems is straightforward, while
you are reading you can understand what the authors are talking about and
referring to. I mean that these are not very complex poems when talking about
their language. The authors of these poems use clear connotations to refer to
what they want to mean. We can say that both authors, Yeats and Eliot, do not
use elaborate language. The authors dedicate the poems to the passing of time,
and they explain that in the other kingdom everything will be as it was before,
as in the youth. The two women that the speakers are referring to, in my
opinion they represent society and the speakers are telling that they must not
have pains. Both authors transmit peace and a good feeling to the reader in
their poems.
“Broken
Dreams” and “Eyes that last I saw in tears” could be
autobiographical since there are a lot of first person pronouns. For example in
Yeats’ poem we can see: us (line 14), I (lines 22, 30, 35, 39), my (line
25) and me (line 26). In Eliot’s poem we also can see the same pronouns:
I (lines 1, 5, 8, 10), my (lines 6, 7) and us (line 15). All these pronouns in
the poems refer to the speakers, they talk in first person. For these reason it
could be that the authors were telling us their own story, a story that maybe
could have been real.
With regard to the length of the poems, they are
different. “Broken Dreams” is longer than “Eyes that last I
saw in tears”. The first poem is written in a five stanza structure of
varied length and, it is forty-one lines long. The second poem is written in a
two stanzas structure and it is fifteen lines long. The rhyme scheme in both
poems is irregular during the course of the poem.
The women in the poem represent society and I think so
because the poets used the theme of the other kingdom to make people not have
pain for death. The authors show the people that kingdom as if they were an
ideal world; everything there is perfect and wonderful. Yeats and Eliot
immerses the reader in the theme and at the same time the poem makes you think
about what it is saying, the passing of time, the end of youth. In my opinion,
the authors are showing their emotions, what they feel or felt in their life.
Both authors talk about time and it seems that they have similar concepts of
time. These poems are a little sad but beautiful. They are composed by simple
words and especially they have a simple theme. I think that there is nothing
confusing or complex.
by Merce Quiralte Moragues.
(23 March 2006)
|
|
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Sources:
- Eliot, Eyes that last I saw in
tears. webmaster@cise.ufl.edu. Last modified 18-Jan-2005. Visited 21 April
2006.
http://www.cise.ufl.edu/
hsiao/verse/eyes.html
- Broken Dream by William
http://www.online-literature.com/yeats/813/
Academic year 2005/2006
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Merce Quiralte Moragues
mamerqui@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Press