SpokenVerse | No Second Troy by W B Yeats (read by Tom O'Bedlam) @SpokenVerse | Uploaded July 2014 | Updated October 2024, 12 hours ago.
This poem about the love of Yeats' life, Maud Gonne. She was a formidable beauty, more than 6ft tall, an actress and an important figure of the Irish Revolution - though she was born in England.
She turned down several marriage proposals from Yeats and married John MacBride instead. The picture shows her speaking at one of MacBride's rallies. MacBride was executed in 1916.
She was the inspiration of many of Yeats' poems. He often compared her with historical beauties - such as Helen of Troy.
Helen of Troy had "the face that launched a thousand ships". This gives us a scientific unit for quantifying beauty. The MilliHelen, sometimes abbreviated to mh, is how much beauty it takes to launch just one ship.
Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great.
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?
This poem about the love of Yeats' life, Maud Gonne. She was a formidable beauty, more than 6ft tall, an actress and an important figure of the Irish Revolution - though she was born in England.
She turned down several marriage proposals from Yeats and married John MacBride instead. The picture shows her speaking at one of MacBride's rallies. MacBride was executed in 1916.
She was the inspiration of many of Yeats' poems. He often compared her with historical beauties - such as Helen of Troy.
Helen of Troy had "the face that launched a thousand ships". This gives us a scientific unit for quantifying beauty. The MilliHelen, sometimes abbreviated to mh, is how much beauty it takes to launch just one ship.
Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great.
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?
