John Kinsella's Lament for Mrs Mary Moore -- William Butler Yeats

(Poem #918) John Kinsella's Lament for Mrs Mary Moore A bloody and a sudden end, Gunshot or a noose, For Death who takes what man would keep, Leaves what man would lose. He might have had my sister, My cousins by the score, But nothing satisfied the fool But my dear Mary Moore, None other knows what pleasures man At table or in bed. What shall I do for pretty girls Now my old bawd is dead? Though stiff to strike a bargain Like an old Jew man, Her bargain stuck we laughed and talked And emptied many a can; And O! but she had stories, Though not for the priest's ear, To keep the soul of man alive, Banish age and care, And being old she put a skin On everything she said. What shall I do for pretty girls Now my old bawd is dead? The priests have got a book that says But for Adam's sin Eden's Garden would be there And I there within. No expectation fails there, No pleasing habit ends, No man grows old, no girl grows cold, But friends walk by friends. Who quarrels over halfpennies That plucks the trees for bread? What shall I do for pretty girls Now my old bawd is dead? -- William Butler Yeats

 From "Last Poems, 1936-39".
 Note on typography: the final couplet of each stanza is in italics in the
original, and unindented.

 A magnificent and touching elegy that paints a vivid picture of the
confused emotions of mourning. The poem's narrator, John Kinsella, is
initially angry with Death, with its arbitrary (and cruel) high-handedness
in taking away the one person he cannot do without, his "dear Mary Moore".
Rage, though, gives way to nostalgia, as he reflects tenderly on the times
spent his sweetheart, times filled with a bawdy joy, a fierce lust for life,
passionate and true. And nostalgia is in turn replaced by a wistfulness, a
longing for release, into a paradise where "No man grows old, no girl grows
cold / But friends walk by friends". This is a closure of sorts, though not,
perhaps, an entirely peaceful one.

 Note especially the (characteristically brilliant) use of a refrain: "What
shall I do for pretty girls / Now my old bawd is dead?", which captures both
the desolation of impending loneliness and the quality of the love that
Kinsella feels for Moore, a love that's based not on prettiness or passion,
but on comfort, and companionship, and closeness. Beautifully done.

thomas.

[Minstrels Links]

William Butler Yeats is one of my favourite poets:
Poem #1, The Song of Wandering Aengus
Poem #21, Sailing to Byzantium
Poem #32, An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
Poem #60, Byzantium
Poem #79, Red Hanrahan's Song About Ireland
Poem #160, The Realists
Poem #237, The Ballad of Father Gilligan
Poem #289, The Second Coming
Poem #309, The Lake Isle of Innisfree
Poem #324, Three Movements
Poem #407, Solomon and the Witch
Poem #436, When You Are Old
Poem #451, Leda and the Swan
Poem #511, Beautiful Lofty Things
Poem #577, The Cat and the Moon
Poem #597, He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
Poem #641, The Road at My Door
Poem #655, No Second Troy

Dylan Thomas is said to have liked today's poem very much; his own work
shares many of its qualities:
Poem #14, Prologue
Poem #38, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Poem #58, The Force that Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower
Poem #138, Fern Hill
Poem #225, Poem In October
Poem #270, Under Milk Wood
Poem #335, After the Funeral (In memory of Ann Jones)
Poem #405, Altarwise by Owl-Light (Stanzas I - IV)
Poem #476, In my craft or sullen art
Poem #568, Especially when the October Wind