The Municipal Gallery Revisited Poem by William Butler Yeats

The Municipal Gallery Revisited

Rating: 4.2


AROUND me the images of thirty years:
An ambush; pilgrims at the water-side;
Casement upon trial, half hidden by the bars,
Guarded; Griffith staring in hysterical pride;
Kevin O'Higgins' countenance that wears
A gentle questioning look that cannot hide
A soul incapable of remorse or rest;
A revolutionary soldier kneeling to be blessed;
An Abbot or Archbishop with an upraised hand
Blessing the Tricolour. 'This is not,' I say,
'The dead Ireland of my youth, but an Ireland
The poets have imagined, terrible and gay.'
Before a woman's portrait suddenly I stand,
Beautiful and gentle in her Venetian way.
I met her all but fifty years ago
For twenty minutes in some studio.

III
Heart-smitten with emotion I Sink down,
My heart recovering with covered eyes;
Wherever I had looked I had looked upon
My permanent or impermanent images:
Augusta Gregory's son; her sister's son,
Hugh Lane, 'onlie begetter' of all these;
Hazel Lavery living and dying, that tale
As though some ballad-singer had sung it all;
Mancini's portrait of Augusta Gregory,
'Greatest since Rembrandt,' according to John Synge;
A great ebullient portrait certainly;
But where is the brush that could show anything
Of all that pride and that humility?
And I am in despair that time may bring
Approved patterns of women or of men
But not that selfsame excellence again.
My mediaeval knees lack health until they bend,
But in that woman, in that household where
Honour had lived so long, all lacking found.
Childless I thought, 'My children may find here
Deep-rooted things,' but never foresaw its end,
And now that end has come I have not wept;
No fox can foul the lair the badger swept --

VI
(An image out of Spenser and the common tongue).
John Synge, I and Augusta Gregory, thought
All that we did, all that we said or sang
Must come from contact with the soil, from that
Contact everything Antaeus-like grew strong.
We three alone in modern times had brought
Everything down to that sole test again,
Dream of the noble and the beggar-man.

VII
And here's John Synge himself, that rooted man,
'Forgetting human words,' a grave deep face.
You that would judge me, do not judge alone
This book or that, come to this hallowed place
Where my friends' portraits hang and look thereon;
Ireland's history in their lineaments trace;
Think where man's glory most begins and ends,
And say my glory was I had such friends.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Ethan West 13 March 2008

The last two lines of the poem were used in the popular 90's television show 'Seinfeld'. Kramer used the lines in Elain's birthday card. Season 2, The Deal.

3 1 Reply
Pete Gelvin 27 February 2020

In the Seinfeld episode “The Deal, ” Yeats is misquoted. In that episode, the last line of Yeat’s poem is read as stating, “... I had such a friend.” Yeats wrote, “... I had such friends.” I was not familiar with the quote until hearing it read (or should I say, “misread”) during the Seinfeld episode. Hearing it made me look up the source and read the entire poem in order to better understand what the author was describing.

0 1 Reply
Rebeka Afsary 29 July 2018

phylosophical poem..reminicience

0 0 Reply

Think where man's glory most begins and ends, And say my glory was I had such friends.

0 2 Reply
Luda Parker 21 May 2009

Oh Liz, lighten up! Seinfeld, introducing Keats to lots of people who will then go on and look the poem up - surely a good thing. I love it.

7 2 Reply
Liz Harnett 22 April 2009

Ugh, to defile the most amazing poem of all time by using it on Seinfeld. I think I'm going to be sick.

4 9 Reply
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William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats

County Dublin / Ireland
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