The Two Trees – W B Yeats

The Two Trees – W B Yeats (1865- 1939)

Beloved, gaze in thine own heart.

The holy tree is growing there;

From joy the holy branches start,

And all the trembling flowers they bear.

The changing colours if its fruit

Have dowered the stars with merry light;

The surety of its hidden root

Has planted quiet in the night;

The shaking of its leafy head

Has given the waves their melody,

And made my lips and music wed,

Murmuring a wizard song for thee.

There the Loves a circle go,

The flaming circle of our days,

Gyring, spiring to and fro

In those great ignorant leafy ways;

Remembering all that shaken hair

And how the winged sandals dart,

Thine eyes grow full of tender care:

Beloved, gaze in thine own heart,

Gaze no more in the bitter glass

The demons, with their subtle guile,

Lift up before us when they pass,

Or only gaze a little while;

For there a fatal image grows

That the stormy night receives,

Roots half hidden under snows,

Broken boughs and blackened leaves.

For all things turn to barrenness

In the dim glass the demons hold,

The glass of outer weariness,

Made when God slept in times of old.

There, through the broken branches, go

The ravens of unresting thought;

Flying, crying, to and fro,

Cruel claw and hungry throat,

Or else they stand and sniff the wind,

And shake their ragged wings; alas!

Thy tender eyes grow all unkind:

Gaze no more in the bitter glass.

Glossary:

wizard:        a man with magic powers

gyring:         to move around in circles                   

guile:           clever dishonest behaviour in order to trick people

barren:         infertile

Summary:

The poet in his poem ‘The Two Trees’ invites his beloved (Maud Gonne) to look inside his heart, where a holy tree grows. Joy shakes its leaves. The shaking of the tree has made him murmur a wizard song for her.

The poet continues, telling his beloved not to look into the mirror, or only for a little while, because a dangerous image there. All things turn to barrenness and mirror holds the image of tiredness. In those frightening places the ravens of unresting thought fly, and make one’s eyes unkind.

This poem, like many that are addressed to Maud Gonne, contrasts her inward with her outward beauty. On a simple level, the poem suggests that the beloved look within herself to the spirit of her nature (the tree), which he himself loves.

Further, she should shun the mirror, which captures her external appearance. Her appearance, though beautiful now, will fade with age. Her inner tree, though, will never grow any less beautiful on a more arcane (mysterious) level. The holy tree could refer either to the tree of knowledge or to the Sephardic tree of the Kabbalah. The Sephardic tree resonates with both good and evil. This poem would fit with the Kabbalic notion of man, which is divided between good and evil. Looking in a glass makes the tree into its reverse image, barren and threatening. Yeats was certainly familiar with the Kabbalah from his theosophical practices.

Sephardim: (pl. Sephardi):                  A Jew whose ancestors came from Spain or North Africa.

Ashkenazim: (pl. Ashkenazi):              A Jew whose ancestors came from central Eastern Europe.

Kabbalah (also: Cabala/Qabalah):      (in Judaism) the ancient tradition of explaining holy texts through

                                                          Mystical means.

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