酷我-北美枫

[星子]

Adam's Curse
Poem lyrics of Adam's Curse by William Butler Yeats.

We sat together at one summer's end,
That beautiful mild woman, your close friend,
And you and I, and talked of poetry.
I said, "A line will take us hours maybe;
Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought,
Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.
Better go down upon your marrow-bones
And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones
Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;
For to articulate sweet sounds together
Is to work harder than all these, and yet
Be thought an idler by the noisy set
Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen
The martyrs call the world.'
And thereupon
That beautiful mild woman for whose sake
There's many a one shall find out all heartache
On finding that her voice is sweet and low
Replied, "To be born woman is to know --
Although they do not talk of it at school --
That we must labour to be beautiful.'
I said, "It's certain there is no fine thing
Since Adam's fall but needs much labouring.
There have been lovers who thought love should be
So much compounded of high courtesy
That they would sigh and quote with learned looks
precedents out of beautiful old books;
Yet now it seems an idle trade enough.'
We sat grown quiet at the name of love;
We saw the last embers of daylight die,
And in the trembling blue-green of the sky
A moon, worn as if it had been a shell
Washed by time's waters as they rose and fell
About the stars and broke in days and years.
I had a thought for no one's but your ears:
That you were beautiful, and that I strove
To love you in the old high way of love;
That it had all seemed happy, and yet we'd grown
As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.



"Adam's Curse"
Summary
Addressing his beloved, the speaker remembers sitting with her and "that beautiful mild woman, your close friend" at the end of summer, discussing poetry. He remarked then that a line of poetry may take hours to write, but if it does not seem the thought of a single moment, the poet's work has been useless. The poet said that it would be better to "scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones / Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather," for to write poetry is a task harder than these, yet less appreciated by the "bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen" of the world.
The "beautiful mild woman"--whose voice, the speaker notes, is so sweet and low it will cause many men heartache--replied that to be born a woman is to know that one must work at being beautiful, even though that kind of work is not discussed at school. The speaker answered by saying that since the fall of Adam, every fine thing has required "labouring." He said that there have been lovers who spent time learning "precedents out of beautiful old books," but now such study seems "an idle trade enough."
At the mention of love, the speaker recalls, the group grew quiet, watching "the last embers of daylight die." In the blue-green sky the moon rose, looking worn as a shell "washed by time's waters as they rose and fell / About the stars and broke in days and years." The speaker says that he spoke only for the ears of his beloved, that she was beautiful, and that he strove to love her "in the old high way of love." It had all seemed happy, he says, "and yet we'd grown / As weary-hearted as that hollow moon."
Form
"Adam's Curse" is written in heroic couplets, which is a name used to describe rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter. Some of the rhymes are full (years/ears) and some are only partial (clergymen/thereupon).
Commentary
"Adam's Curse" is an extraordinary poem; though it was written early in Yeats's career (appearing in his 1904 collection In the Seven Woods), and though its stylistic simplicity is somewhat atypical for Yeats, it easily ranks among his best and most moving work. Within an emotional recollection of an evening spent with his beloved and her friend, Yeats frames a philosophical argument: that because of the curse of labor that God placed upon Adam when He expelled him from the Garden of Eden, every worthwhile human achievement (particularly those aimed at achieving beauty, whether in poetry, physical appearance, or love) requires hard work. The simple, speech-like rhythms of the iambic pentameter fulfill the poet's dictate that a poetic line should seem "but a moment's thought," and the bittersweet emotional tone appears wholly organic, a natural result of the recollection. The speaker loves the woman to whom the poem is addressed, and speaks "only for [her] ears"; but though the scene seems happy, their hearts are as weary as shells worn by the waters of time.
Behind the natural, unsophisticated feel of the poem, of course, lies a great deal of hard work and structure--just as the poem's speaker says must be true of poetry generally. (One of the most charming aspects of this poem is its mirroring of the aesthetic principles laid out by the speaker in the first stanza.) The discussion of work and beauty is divided into three progressive parts: the speaker's claims about poetry, the friend's claims about physical beauty, and the speaker's claims about love. This last claim affords Yeats the chance both to hush the trio and to soften the mood of the poem, and the speaker looks outward to the rising moon, which becomes a metaphor for the effects of time on the human heart, a weariness presumably compounded by the labor of living "since Adam's fall."

--------from study guide
_________________

[[ANNA]]

Adam's Curse
Poem lyrics of Adam's Curse by William Butler Yeats.

We sat together at one summer's end,
That beautiful mild woman, your close friend,
And you and I, and talked of poetry.
I said, "A line will take us hours maybe;
Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought,
Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.
Better go down upon your marrow-bones
And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones
Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;
For to articulate sweet sounds together
Is to work harder than all these, and yet
Be thought an idler by the noisy set
Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen
The martyrs call the world.'
And thereupon
That beautiful mild woman for whose sake
There's many a one shall find out all heartache
On finding that her voice is sweet and low
Replied, "To be born woman is to know --
Although they do not talk of it at school --
That we must labour to be beautiful.'
I said, "It's certain there is no fine thing
Since Adam's fall but needs much labouring.
There have been lovers who thought love should be
So much compounded of high courtesy
That they would sigh and quote with learned looks
precedents out of beautiful old books;
Yet now it seems an idle trade enough.'
We sat grown quiet at the name of love;
We saw the last embers of daylight die,
And in the trembling blue-green of the sky
A moon, worn as if it had been a shell
Washed by time's waters as they rose and fell
About the stars and broke in days and years.
I had a thought for no one's but your ears:
That you were beautiful, and that I strove
To love you in the old high way of love;
That it had all seemed happy, and yet we'd grown
As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.



"Adam's Curse"
Summary
Addressing his beloved, the speaker remembers sitting with her and "that beautiful mild woman, your close friend" at the end of summer, discussing poetry. He remarked then that a line of poetry may take hours to write, but if it does not seem the thought of a single moment, the poet's work has been useless. The poet said that it would be better to "scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones / Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather," for to write poetry is a task harder than these, yet less appreciated by the "bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen" of the world.
The "beautiful mild woman"--whose voice, the speaker notes, is so sweet and low it will cause many men heartache--replied that to be born a woman is to know that one must work at being beautiful, even though that kind of work is not discussed at school. The speaker answered by saying that since the fall of Adam, every fine thing has required "labouring." He said that there have been lovers who spent time learning "precedents out of beautiful old books," but now such study seems "an idle trade enough."
At the mention of love, the speaker recalls, the group grew quiet, watching "the last embers of daylight die." In the blue-green sky the moon rose, looking worn as a shell "washed by time's waters as they rose and fell / About the stars and broke in days and years." The speaker says that he spoke only for the ears of his beloved, that she was beautiful, and that he strove to love her "in the old high way of love." It had all seemed happy, he says, "and yet we'd grown / As weary-hearted as that hollow moon."
Form
"Adam's Curse" is written in heroic couplets, which is a name used to describe rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter. Some of the rhymes are full (years/ears) and some are only partial (clergymen/thereupon).
Commentary
"Adam's Curse" is an extraordinary poem; though it was written early in Yeats's career (appearing in his 1904 collection In the Seven Woods), and though its stylistic simplicity is somewhat atypical for Yeats, it easily ranks among his best and most moving work. Within an emotional recollection of an evening spent with his beloved and her friend, Yeats frames a philosophical argument: that because of the curse of labor that God placed upon Adam when He expelled him from the Garden of Eden, every worthwhile human achievement (particularly those aimed at achieving beauty, whether in poetry, physical appearance, or love) requires hard work. The simple, speech-like rhythms of the iambic pentameter fulfill the poet's dictate that a poetic line should seem "but a moment's thought," and the bittersweet emotional tone appears wholly organic, a natural result of the recollection. The speaker loves the woman to whom the poem is addressed, and speaks "only for [her] ears"; but though the scene seems happy, their hearts are as weary as shells worn by the waters of time.
Behind the natural, unsophisticated feel of the poem, of course, lies a great deal of hard work and structure--just as the poem's speaker says must be true of poetry generally. (One of the most charming aspects of this poem is its mirroring of the aesthetic principles laid out by the speaker in the first stanza.) The discussion of work and beauty is divided into three progressive parts: the speaker's claims about poetry, the friend's claims about physical beauty, and the speaker's claims about love. This last claim affords Yeats the chance both to hush the trio and to soften the mood of the poem, and the speaker looks outward to the rising moon, which becomes a metaphor for the effects of time on the human heart, a weariness presumably compounded by the labor of living "since Adam's fall."

--------from study guide
_________________

[ericcoliu]

Hi! 星子:

Thank you very much for your posting this timely and insightful poem, which sheds light on the hard labour that goes into the making of a good poem.

Generally speaking, the commentary made by the Study Guide above is well-written; however, in my view, one weakness of its comment on Adam's Curse is a lack of histo-cultural understanding of Yeats' taking the effort of engaging with the wide-ranging cultural debate about the definition of work and the relationship between seemingly naught aesthetic labour and economically and materially driven models of production.

By the way, I think you need to put a blank line between stanzas to make it easily read and understood.

Below is my short review of Adam's Curse:

William Butler Yeats’ 1904 autobiographic poem entitled Adam’s Curse, written in uneven-length stanzas of iambic pentameter rhymed couplets, recounts emotionally the poet’s evening meeting with his beloved and her friend, and it poses a philosophic question about the curse of labouring placed on Adam, surely including all of his posterity, in The Book of Genesis where the ground is cursed:

"Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.

It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.

By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return."(Chapter 3:17-9)


Through this poem Yeats says that every fine thing requires labour to be accomplished well, specifically poetry, beauty and love.

Read within in the cultural context of his day, in many ways, Adam’s Curse offers a lyric meditation on what once was a Victorian wide-ranging cultural debate about the definition of work and the relationship between seemingly worthless aesthetic labour and economically and materially driven models of production. Yeats mulls over the conflicting views about labour between aesthetic labour and more aggressive manual work performed by "the noisy set / Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen / The martyrs call the world" (lines 12-14), and eventually his heart and mind are drawn to the labour of poetry, which is, for him, arduous and impassioned, because the work of beauty is more effortful and elusive while the travail of love is silent, unrequited and far more intense.

Under the curse of Adam, Yeats writes about the hard labour that goes into the making of a good verse line: “A line will take us hours maybe;/Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought,/Our stitching and unstitching has been naught”. Examining all the available drafts of this poem, we will be assured that Adam’s Curse truly bears fervent testimony to his intense search for, a dogged pursuit of the right form, explorations of the right phrasing, and his unwavering groping for the correct meter and rhyme.
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[[ericcoliu]]

Hi! 星子:

Thank you very much for your posting this timely and insightful poem, which sheds light on the hard labour that goes into the making of a good poem.

Generally speaking, the commentary made by the Study Guide above is well-written; however, in my view, one weakness of its comment on Adam's Curse is a lack of histo-cultural understanding of Yeats' taking the effort of engaging with the wide-ranging cultural debate about the definition of work and the relationship between seemingly naught aesthetic labour and economically and materially driven models of production.

By the way, I think you need to put a blank line between stanzas to make it easily read and understood.

Below is my short review of Adam's Curse:

William Butler Yeats’ 1904 autobiographic poem entitled Adam’s Curse, written in uneven-length stanzas of iambic pentameter rhymed couplets, recounts emotionally the poet’s evening meeting with his beloved and her friend, and it poses a philosophic question about the curse of labouring placed on Adam, surely including all of his posterity, in The Book of Genesis where the ground is cursed:

"Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.

It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.

By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return."(Chapter 3:17-9)


Through this poem Yeats says that every fine thing requires labour to be accomplished well, specifically poetry, beauty and love.

Read within in the cultural context of his day, in many ways, Adam’s Curse offers a lyric meditation on what once was a Victorian wide-ranging cultural debate about the definition of work and the relationship between seemingly worthless aesthetic labour and economically and materially driven models of production. Yeats mulls over the conflicting views about labour between aesthetic labour and more aggressive manual work performed by "the noisy set / Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen / The martyrs call the world" (lines 12-14), and eventually his heart and mind are drawn to the labour of poetry, which is, for him, arduous and impassioned, because the work of beauty is more effortful and elusive while the travail of love is silent, unrequited and far more intense.

Under the curse of Adam, Yeats writes about the hard labour that goes into the making of a good verse line: “A line will take us hours maybe;/Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought,/Our stitching and unstitching has been naught”. Examining all the available drafts of this poem, we will be assured that Adam’s Curse truly bears fervent testimony to his intense search for, a dogged pursuit of the right form, explorations of the right phrasing, and his unwavering groping for the correct meter and rhyme.
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul