The Two Trees     CE HE MISE LE ULAINGT?
    /THE TWO TREES (9:06)		 



  1. Beloved, gaze in thine own heart,
  2. The holy tree is growing there;
  3. From joy the holy branches start,
  4. And all the trembling flowers they bear.
  5. The changing colours of its fruit
  6. Have dowered the stars with metry light;
  7. The surety of its hidden root
  8. Has planted quiet in the night;
  9. The shaking of its leafy head
10. Has given the waves their melody,
11. And made my lips and music wed,
12. Murmuring a wizard song for thee.
13. There the Joves a circle go,
14. The flaming circle of our days,
15. Gyring, spiring to and fro
16. In those great ignorant leafy ways;
17. Remembering all that shaken hair
18. And how the winged sandals dart,
19. Thine eyes grow full of tender care:

20. Beloved, gaze in thine own heart.
21. Gaze no more in the bitter glass
22. The demons, with their subtle guile,
23. Lift up before us when they pass,
24. Or only gaze a little while;
25. For there a fatal image grows
26. That the stormy night receives,
27. Roots half hidden under snows,
28. Broken boughs and blackened leaves.
29. For ill things turn to barrenness
30. In the dim glass the demons hold,
31. The glass of outer weariness,
32. Made when God slept in times of old.
33. There, through the broken branches, go
34. The ravens of unresting thought;
35. Flying, crying, to and fro,
36. Cruel claw and hungry throat,
37. Or else they stand and sniff the wind,
38. And shake their ragged wings; alas!
39. Thy tender eyes grow all unkind:
40. Gaze no more in the bitter glass.
-William Butler Yeats

 

 

      1. Beloved, gaze in thine own heart
      2. The holy tree is growing there;
      3. From joy the holy branches start
      4. And all the trembling flowers they bear.
      5. The changing colours of its fruit
      6. Have dowered the stars with merry light;
      7. The surety of its hidden root
      8. Has planted quiet in the night;
      9. The shaking of its leafy head
    10. Has given the waves their melody.
    11. And made my lips and music wed,
    12. Murmuring a wizard song for thee,
    13.There the Loves a circle go, 
    14. The flaming circle of our days,
    15. Gyring, spiring to and fro
    16. In those great ignorant leafy ways;
    17. Remembering all that shaken hair
    18. And how the winged sandals dart
    19. Thine eyes grow full of tender care; 
    20. Beloved, gaze in thine own heart.

    21. Gaze no more in the bitter glass
    22. The demons, with their subtle guile,
    23. Lift up before us when they pass,
    24. Or only gaze a little while;
    25. For there a fatal image grows
    26. That the stormy night receives,
    27. Roots half hidden under snows,
    28. Broken boughs and blackened leaves.
    29. For all things turn to bareness
    30. In the dim glass the demons hold,
    31. The glass of outer weariness,
    32. Made when God slept in times of old.
    33. There, through the broken branches, go
    34. The ravens of unresting thought;
    35. Flying, crying, to and fro,
    36. Cruel claw and hungry throat,
    37. Or else they stand and sniff the wind,
    38. And shake their ragged wings: alas! 
    39. Thy tender eyes grow all unkind:
    40. Gaze no more in the bitter glass.
  1:41. Beloved, gaze in thine own heart,
  2:42. The holy tree is growing there;
  3:43. From joy the holy branches start,
  4:44. And all the trembling flowers they bear.
17:45. Remembering all that shaken hair 
18:46. And how the winged sandals dart,
19:47. Thine eyes grow full of tender care;
20:48. Beloved, gaze in thine own heart.

Music by Loreena McKennitt.
Words by William Butler Yeats
Pipe intro (Ce He Mise Le Ulaingt?
composed and performed by
Patrick Hutchinson.

Comment:

Think Positive:Feel Joy
Yeat's lyric counsel, addressed to a"Beloved": Stop hurting yourself.   The voice is that of love. Not that sophisticated love, that spectrum we see advertised, displayed and promoted, but the voice and heart of a man whose experience has ripened into wisdom.   Here love is not the something-for-myself but the desire to see another, to help another, be happy. A fathers voice.

Don't dwell on life's hurts, misfortunes.   Look at them but long enough to know them to become wise from them, then go on your way.  Of course, in real life not everyone is as quick as the other.  And some misfortunes just seem to to take some time to know and own. Rancor, cynicism and bitterness are immaterial, whether one may be just and righteous in it or not. Obsession is fatal to everything lovable in a person.

Most everyone wants to be happy.    Some have lost that desire, having been submerged and overcome by their own bitterness.  Some have just gotten lost, not having been able to break away from various self oriented strategies. And, some have been redeemed. . .  somehow.   Maybe because someone who had nothing to gain by it stopped long enough to care.   Yeats cared.  McKennitt cares.  Each has in their own way has stopped and worked quite diligently and artfully to, in effect, say "Heh,  why not look that-a-way for a while."

For Yeats, "that-a-way" is "...in thine own heart."  In context, the implication is that there is a sham interiority.  A reflection mirrored by ill intentioned "demons."   Of course, the reflection is subtle and the juvenile spirit - however old the body is - is easily lead astray.  Like gravity around a singularity, inner vision is warped and intelligence defrauded.

Sages for ages have pointed this out.  The "sweet in the mouth but sour in the stomach" themes.  Most people, upon first exposure, are really in no position to appreciate these thoughts.   "Joy" seems to be the key to that which is to be found within.  And this joy seems to be linked with love.  McKennitt makes this interpretation rather explicit by substituting "Loves" for "Joves" in line 13.  She is putting her own spin on the poem, of course, and rightly so.  But it's the same thing that's been spun:  Love.  "Tender care."

Interpreting a little myself, there is a mystery here.  Some might say, paradox.  Something on the order of pulling oneself up by ones own bootstraps.  Neither Yeats or McKennitt shy away from using the word "holy."  Which perhaps points the reader or listener in a fruitful direction.

Somehow the bitter person (and everybody else) must find joy.  But joy is a response simultaneous with the acquisition  and possession of some hoped for good.  The bitter person is bitter because of some mis-fortune.  The bitter person has placed hope (too much or the wrong kind) in a fortune or good that has failed, either passively or aggressively.  Instead of despair and resolved bitterness, a fresh out-look (read: in-look) is perhaps in order.   The new hope is called a "holy tree" and its discovery begins with joy and ends in joy.

Now here's the paradox:  Joy, when everything has failed. And, every thing will inevitably fail.  Yet, it's there.  Within.  Even now.  It has only to be seen.

But how?

Well. . .  A certain amount of experience with the unsatisfactory nature of the "goods" around us seems to be prerequisite.  A degree of standing at the proverbial crossroads seems to be prerequisite.  Some appear to be luckier than others, perhaps, in that they seem fated to happen upon profitable directions, friends and so on.  This puts us at the "looking" point of view.  Rather than the smug, "I'm, having a ball and nobody can convince me I haven't already found the secret to happiness" attitude, a degree of. . . humility.  A degree of personal acceptance of the reality that one has just been spinning their wheels. 

Not that that is evil, per se.  Life is life.  Growing things grow.  Nothing that is is exactly what it was when it began. . .   Show me one.  Acorns become trees and trees become acorns. "Gyring, spiring . . .the circle of our days." And so it is with humans.   Ours is bit more complex, with it's interior dimensions, but a circle still.   A circle different in kind, in that for us there is a beyond.  A within.   There is the "holy tree" which is both us, and More. 

It's not Yeats nor McKennitt's nor my place to expound further.  We have pointed to.  It remains only to be found out.   There is a choice here.  Some choose to be bitter.

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