September 1913 by W.B. Yeats (Important quotes)

Cacophony - Yeats mocks his contemporaries

“But fumble in a greasy till”

Cacophony - Exploitation of workers, greed

“You have dried the marrow from the bone”

Cacophony - Religion out of fear

“Prayer to shivering prayer”

Repetition - The death of Romantic Ireland

“Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, It’s with O’Leary in the grave”

Repetition, Rhetorical question - Yeats interrogates his contemporaries, forcing them to look at the sacrifices they scorned

“For this”

Rhetorical question - Yeats is sarcastically saying that his contemporaries have everything they need

“What need you, being come to sense”

Rhetorical question - Yeats wonders if the heroes’ sacrifices were in vain

“And what, God help us, could they save?”

Rhetorical question - Yeats wonders if the heroes being exiled was for nothing

“Was it for this the wild geese spread The grey wing upon every tide”

Rhetorical question - The heroes went mad because of their patriotism

“All this delirium of the brave?”

Simile - Shows how famous the heroes of days past were

“They have gone about the world like wind”

Metaphor - Compares love for country (patriotism) to love sickness. Love makes people do crazy things. Yeats’ contemporaries would laugh in the face of the old heroes and call them mad.

“Some woman’s yellow hair Has maddened every mother’s son”

Contrast - Between the modern Irish people and the heroes of bygone days.

“But fumble in a greasy till And add the halfpence to the pence And prayer to shivering prayer” “Little time had they to pray” “They weighed so lightly what they gave”

Tone

Sarcastic, angry. Becomes resigned at the end. “But let them be, they’re dead and gone, They’re with O’Leary in the grave”

Mood

Disheartened, feeling reprimanded. “you”

Themes

Rejection of modern society, patriotism

Prayer and saving done not out of love and selflessness, but out of greed and self-preservation.

“Add the halfpence to the pence And prayer to shivering prayer” “For men were born to pray and save”

Lists the heroes of olden days

“For this that Edward Fitzgerald died, And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone”