Commentary: ‘Meru’

Abstract

For such an expert and experimenter with poetic forms, Yeats wrote few sonnets. His choice of the form here is therefore significant. This is the traditional Shakespearean sonnet, in which three pentameter quatrains, rhyming abab, are completed by a final rhyming couplet. The argument is divided between the octet (the first eight lines) and the sestet (the last six lines). These function as separate units of sense: the main outline of the argument is set out in the octet, and certain conclusions are drawn and morals pointed in the sestet. The final couplet usually functions as a fairly separate unit within this division. Here, it sums up what the hermits ‘know’.

Civilisation is hooped together, brought

Under a rule, under the semblance of peace

By manifold illusion; but man’s life is thought,

And he, despite his terror, cannot cease

Ravening through century after century,

Ravening, raging and uprooting that he may come

Into the desolation of reality:

Egypt and Greece, good-bye, and good-bye, Rome!

Hermits upon Mount Meru or Everest,

Caverned in night under the drifted snow,

Or where that snow and winter’s dreadful blast

Beat down upon their naked bodies, know

That day brings round the night, that before dawn

His glory and his monuments are gone.