William Butler Yeats

Who Goes with Fergus?

I chose this poem because it has some of the myth and magic that I find interesting. In the poem Yeats is calling up his fellow man to follow the beliefs of King Fergus: “Who will go drive with Fergus now, /And pierce the deep wood’s woven shade,/And dance upon the level shore?/Young man, lift up your russet brow,/And lift your tender eyelids, maid/And brood on hopes and fear no more.”I know from books that I had read that King Fergus was a mythical and ancient King of Ireland. Many rulers that followed were named after him to honor his legacy.  I feel that since Yeats had a strong sense of countryman ship, he wanted his fellow Irishmen to go back to the days when nature and man were one. At the end on the second stanza he goes into great detail describing the countryside he sees: “For Fergus rules the brazen cars, /And rules the shadows of the wood,/And the white breast of the dim sea/And all disheveled wandering stars.”  Ireland was a country of great turmoil and I can’t help but to interpret this poem as a calling for people to go back to a simpler life: to leave the life of arguing and governing behind, and embrace the natural world around them.