Walking Like Joyce, Talking Like Yeats

A collage of my literary journey in Ireland.

"Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams," is the first Yeats quote I ever read, on a plaque outside his seaside cottage in Howth. Since that first gulp of words, I've bought a volume of his poetry (selected by Seamus Heaney) and have been slowly taking sips of his work whenever I'm parched for beautiful language and imagery. His words ring true for me, and when I discovered that there was a Yeats exhibition at the National Library, I was overjoyed. I saw his personal copy of Walden, his last pair of glasses, personal letters in his own glorious handwriting, scripts for Abbey plays, and even a lock of his hair. Perhaps the most interesting artifact I found, however, wasn't even in the exhibit. At a small bookshop in Athlone, I struck up a conversation with the shop owner and when he recognized my interest in Irish playwrites, he lifted a black binder from the top shelf behind the register. It was filled to the brim with photos, letters, and other snippets collected from auctions that formed a shrine to Yeats, Beckett, Joyce, and Sheridan.

What stuck out most was a small piece of yellowing paper with the words, "Only the wasteful virtues earn the sun," dated April 24, 1916. According to the bookshop owner, this was Yeats' first reaction to the Easter Rising. He told me a story that shed light on the meaning behind the poet's curious word choice. When Yeats was younger, a young man from his home town jumped overboard a ship to save a woman's hat that had caught in the wind and drifted in the water. In his heroic attempt to salvage a mere hat, the man drowned. Yeats' mother thought that the man wasted his whole life because he was trying to be virtuous. Yeats, who had mixed feelings about the Rising, considered the event a "wasteful virtue" since so many men wasted their talents to rot in jail or be executed. However, he also adds that such a folly can "earn the sun," which shows that maybe he sympathized with the Nationalist cause afterall. He mourned the loss of life and opportunity of the men who organized the uprising, but he also recognized that a greater purpose existed. When great men like Yeats reflect on monumental events in history, it compells one to examine their own beliefs. His reactionary sentence, just seven words long, is so full of complexity and brings up so many questions. Yeats' quote provides a direct pathway to the mindset during the time of the rebellion, and helps to open a window to the past.