A Statesman's Holiday
A Statesman's Holiday - meaning Summary
Retreat Into Imaginative Play
The poem presents a speaker who rejects public status and the corruption of high society for a freer, imaginative life of music and play. Yeats contrasts lofty titles and worldly ambition with the recurrent, dreamlike image Tall dames go walking in grass-green Avalon
, a refrain that anchors the speaker’s chosen refuge. He adopts humble dress, companions, and simple pleasures, celebrating creative escape and the consolations of art and childlike freedom.
I lived among great houses, Riches drove out rank, Base drove out the better blood, And mind and body shrank. No Oscar ruled the table, But I'd a troop of friends That knowing better talk had gone Talked of odds and ends. Some knew what ailed the world But never said a thing, So I have picked a better trade And night and morning sing: Tall dames go walking in grass-green Avalon. Am I a great Lord Chancellor That slept upon the Sack? Commanding officer that tore The khaki from his back? Or am I de Valera, Or the King of Greece, Or the man that made the motors? Ach, call me what you please! Here's a Montenegrin lute, And its old sole string Makes me sweet music And I delight to sing: Tall dames go walking in grass-green Avalon. With boys and girls about him. With any sort of clothes, With a hat out of fashion, With Old patched shoes, With a ragged bandit cloak, With an eye like a hawk, With a stiff straight back, With a strutting turkey walk. With a bag full of pennies, With a monkey on a chain, With a great cock's feather, With an old foul tune. Tall dames go walking in grass-green Avalon.
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