Throwback Thursdays” at ClimbingSky feature posts I wrote over a 15 year period for various blogs. This was first posted on January 29, 2011

There is a peculiar irony that this poem about a famous poet’s death was written by a poet who died so anonymously that his body was not found for several days after his death. Such is the nature of fame… and finitude.

While Yeats continued to write and grow as poet throughout his life, Delmore Schwartz, who suffered from alcoholism and mental illness, took the opposite trajectory. He created some very good work in his early career, including this poem… but soon faded. His poetic powers suffering the effects of the illnesses that ravaged his body and mind.

I wanted to post Auden’s famous poem about Yeats side-by-side with this one. They make a good match. Poets thinking poetically about poets and poetry.

Enjoy!

Yeats Died Saturday in France

Yeats died Saturday in France.
Freedom from his animal
Has come at last in alien Nice,
His heart beat separate from his will:
He knows at last the old abyss
Which always faced his staring face.

No ability, no dignity
Can fail him now who trained so long
For the outrage of eternity,
Teaching his heart to beat a song
In which man’s strict humanity,
Erect as a soldier, became a tongue.