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W.B. Yeats - Coggle Diagram

- - - - ‘There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow/ And evening full of the linnet's wings’
      - These beautiful lines depict the stars glimmering in the black midnight sky, the purple glow of noon when wildflowers, like bluebells, are in full bloom, and the evening is full of flocks of linnets flying.
    - - ‘I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore’
      - Here, Yeats uses the onomatopoeic word ‘lapping’ to convey the gentle sound the water is making, while the alliteration of the soft T sounds is like the ripples of the lake.
    - - ‘I will arise and go now...’
      - This is a biblical allusion to the parable of the Prodigal Son. The prodigal son says this when he decides to return home. Yeats uses it here to show that Innisfree feels like home to him, and so he wants to return there.
- - - - 'Under the October twilight the water/ Mirrors a still sky'
      - This image is a picture-perfect one of the smooth surface of a lake on a calm, twilight evening, mirroring the sky above, so that there appear to be two skies.
    - - ‘Upon the brimming water among the stones/ Are nine and fifty years’
      - The sibilance in this line draws attention to the number of swans. It also sounds like the water at the lake's edge
    - - ‘bell-beat’
      - This accurately conveys the sound of the swans' wings as they take off into
        the air.
    - - ‘Their hearts have not grown old’
      - This is a poetic way of saying that love and companionship keep the heart young, no matter what age you are, whereas loneliness and isolation age the heart prematurely
- - - - ‘They have gone about the world like wind'
      - Wind goes everywhere swiftly, so this describes how the names of O'Leary, Fitzgerald and Emmett have become known internationally.
    - - ‘They have gone about the world like wind'
      - The repetition of 'w’ gives a sense of speed to this line, which ties in with what it is describing.
    - - ‘fumble'
      - This word gives an unflattering depiction of greedy proprietors grasping at the coins in the till.
    - - ‘Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,/ It's with O'Leary in the grave’
      - The repetition of these two lines emphasises Yeats' belief that the glory days of Ireland and Irish nationalism are over
    - - ‘But little time had they to pray/ For whom the hangman's rope was spun/ And what, God help us, could they save?’
      - Here, Yeats uses a rhetorical question to contrast the sacrifices made by Edward Fitzgerald, Wolfe Tone and Robert Emmett to the stinginess and lack of foresight of those opposing the funding of an art gallery in 1913. While the latter only care about attending mass and hoarding away every halfpenny, the former had no time to pray because they were fighting and dying for their cause and had no money to save because they were not paid for their service to Ireland.
    - - ‘Was it for this the wild geese spread/ The grey wing upon every tide?’
      - This is a historical allusion to Irish men, known as 'wild geese', who served in armies abroad, thus glorifying the reputation of Ireland.
- - - - ‘To murmur name upon name/ As a mother names her child'
      - This is an effective comparison because it is a gentle image, which is then contrasted by Yeats when he points out that these men are not asleep, they are dead.
    - - ‘The stone's in the midst of all.’
      - Yeats compares the hearts of the nationalists to stones because they are fixed a rigid, they will not change,
    - - ‘the casual comedy'
      - The alliteration here emphasises Yeats' dim view of Irish nationalism prior to 1916. Not only did he look on nationalism as a joke, but it was also a 'careless', or poorly constructed one.
    - - ‘A horse-hoof slides on the brim/ And a horse plashes within it’
      - Like the previous example, the sibilance here makes the lines sound wet and watery like the stream Yeats is describing.
    - - ‘Shrill’
      - The harsh, piercing sound here helps to convey Yeats description of Constance Markievicz's voice.
    - - ‘A terrible beauty is born.’
      - This short line encapsulates the failures and the successes of the Easter Rising very succinctly. In many ways, the Rising was a terrible disaster, but what was beautiful was the love of the nationalists for their country and how public opinion was changed completely Yet, this beauty is terrible, because it necessitated so much bloodshed and destruction.
    - - ‘All changed, changed utterly/A terrible beauty is born.’
      - The repetition of ‘changed' refers to the dramatic change in the Irish political landscape after the Easter Rising, while the repetition of ‘terrible beauty' is a reminder that the change in public opinion came at a terrible cost, the deaths of so many.
    - - ‘Was it needless death after all?'
      - The British had promised to restore independence to Ireland in return for assistance in the First World War. The Easter Rising occurred when it did because the Irish thought the British would be too occupied with their war efforts to stop them. Yeats is pointing out that independence could have been gained without any bloodshed when the war ended. After the defeat of the Easter Rising, few were brave enough to ask this question, and it is arguably the most important line in the whole poem.
    - - ‘This man had kept a school/ And rode our winged horse'
      - This line alludes to Padraig Pearse, who founded St. Enda's school, and to Pegasus, the winged horse of Greek mythology, often a symbol of wisdom, poetry, and inspiration. Yeats uses this allusion to show how inspirational and talented Pearse was.
      - ‘This other man I had dreamed/ A drunken, vainglorious lout. He had done most bitter wrong/ To some who are near my heart.’
      - Here, Yeats is alluding to John McBride, husband of Maud Gonne. The 'bitter wrong' he is referring to are the allegations that McBride molested Gonne's daughter from a previous relationship, Iseult. Yeats had to include McBride in his poem about the Easter Rising, but by doing so in this way he ensures that McBride's legacy is a negative one.
- - - - ‘…the singing-masters of my soul’
      - The sibilance here connects 'singing' and 'soul and thus emphasises Yeats' central premise in the poem, that the soul can be taught to 'sing
    - - ‘That is no country for old men.’
      - This simply worded line (which was the title of the 2005 novel No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy, and of the 2007 film by the same name) articulates how the world can often seem to be for the young, and that when people grow old, there is no real place for them.