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A reflection on the poet Seamus Heaney's connection with the works of WB Yeats, the author's Irish translation of When You Are Old, and memorable readings at the Abbey Theatre and Lisadell House.
A reading by Seamus Heaney from his collection District and Circle took place at the Abbey Theatre in 2006. Most of us have heard the opening words of Horace's ode, 'carpe diem', but fewer know the second part 'quam minimum credula postero'.
Horace is urging us, of course, to seize the opportunity without worrying about what lies ahead. Since then many poets have used this theme in their poems, especially when tempted by a beautiful woman. One such poet was the French poet Pierre de Ronsard, who in his sonnet Quand vous serez bien vielle addresses a young proud woman who has rejected him, asking her to reconsider.
He suggests that when she grows old she will be proud to know that a poet as famous as he praised the beauty of her youth. She should therefore gather the roses of life today. I have recited another Ronsard poem, Mother of the Groom, at my daughter Claire's wedding. Seamus was happy to sign a copy of the poem which Claire then presented to her mother-in-law, an occasion that moved the entire gathering.
When Maud Gonne rejected WB Yeats after he proposed marriage to her in 1891, he was heartbroken. This came shortly after the death of Charles Stewart Parnell and the death of George, Gonne's young child. The episode inspired Yeats to compose the beautiful poem When You Are Old, published in the collection The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends in 1892 and again in The Rose the following year.
Although the poem does not fully borrow from Ronsard's work, it bears a strong resemblance to it. Yeats describes Gonne as an old woman sitting by a fire. Before sleep overcomes her she takes down a book of the poet's verses and reads until she finds poems that capture her own youthful beauty. In 1998 I translated this beautiful poem into Irish under the title Nuair A Bheidh Tú Sean.
When my wife and I were guests of Patrick O'Connor, Ireland's Ambassador to France, at the Irish Embassy in Paris that year during the time of the Good Friday Agreement, I gave him a copy of the translation and he hung it on the wall of the Embassy. A week later the Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney and his wife Marie visited the Embassy and Seamus read the translation.
He was moved by the flow of the words and left me a copy of his collection Electric Light. I was delighted when he wrote the words. That reference was to a translation Heaney himself had made in the same collection of the poem Arion by the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, which describes the mythical Greek poet who escaped a shipwreck when dolphins came to his rescue.
I had first encountered Seamus years earlier when he was invited to the school where I was teaching at the time, Coláiste na gCnoc Glas, to give a lecture to pupils and teachers on Yeats. Seamus was not yet as famous at that stage and had not yet become a leading poet. He possessed deep knowledge of Yeats and made a strong impression on both teachers and pupils.
I had met Seamus Heaney some years earlier when he was invited to give a lecture on Yeats at the school where I taught. In June 2015 the 150th anniversary of Yeats's birth was celebrated. The Central Bank of Ireland issued a fifteen euro silver commemorative coin in his honour. Des Geraghty, a member of the Central Bank Commission, launched the coin at the Abbey Theatre.
He invited me to attend the launch. WB Yeats's granddaughter Caitriona Yeats was also present. I spoke with this distinguished clarinetist and teacher and introduced her to the young Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Simon Harris, who is now Tánaiste. After the official launch and the speeches my friend Des Geraghty asked me to recite When You Are Old along with the Irish translation.
It was a great honour to read it on such an important occasion. Later that month Eddie Walsh, owner of Lisadell House, invited me to the house to recite more Yeats poems during the poet's birthday celebration. Eddie is a friend of my younger brother and they went to school together years ago.
It was strange to be in the large sitting room where Yeats mentioned the two young Gore-Booth sisters who would later become famous as Eva Gore-Booth, the poet, and Countess de Markievicz
Seamus Heaney WB Yeats When You Are Old Irish Translation Abbey Theatre
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