An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

William Butler Yeats

I know that I shall meet my fate 

Somewhere among the clouds above; 

Those that I fight I do not hate 

Those that I guard I do not love; 

My country is Kiltartan Cross,

My countrymen Kiltartan's poor, 

No likely end could bring them loss 

Or leave them happier than before. 

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, 

Nor public man, nor cheering crowds,

A lonely impulse of delight 

Drove to this tumult in the clouds; 

I balanced all, brought all to mind, 

The years to come seemed waste of breath, 

A waste of breath the years behind

In balance with this life, this death.

iNTRODUCTION

Italy, 1918. World War I had been ravaging Europe for almost four years. With millions dead on both sides of the conflict, it seemed like there was no end in sight. Near the end of January of that year, a thirty-seven-year-old Irish pilot was mistakenly shot down by an Italian aviator (Italy and Great Britain were allies then). An accomplished artist and cricketer (meaning, he played that British form of baseball called cricket), the young man's name was Robert Gregory, and he was the son of a woman named Lady Gregory. Both were very dear friends of Ireland's leading poet, William Butler Yeats.

Yeats was profoundly affected by Robert Gregory's death, and immediately began writing about it. Shortly after penning a short prose eulogy in February, 1918, he wrote several poems about his old friend, including "In Memory of Major Robert Gregory" and "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death." Both of these poems would be published in 1919 in the second edition of Yeats' 1917 volume, The Wild Swans at Coole (named after the swans that were part of the scenery at Coole Park, residence of Lady Gregory and frequent vacation spot for Yeats).

While "In Memory of Major Robert Gregory" is an elegy for Gregory, written from the perspective of Yeats himself, "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" is Yeats' attempt to get inside Gregory's head, so to speak, and describe Gregory's sense of life, certain death, and war.

While the poem illustrates what must have been a constant preoccupation for soldiers in the First World War (a fear of inevitable death), it also tries to come to grips with Gregory's, and many others', decision to participate in an ultimately senseless conflict. Yeats' only solution to the question of why Gregory got involved in the first place is a "lonely impulse of delight." We don't know about you, but that seems a really weird and mysterious explanation that gives us a strange feeling in our tummies.

Summary

The poem is almost like a meditation. The speaker knows that he will die somewhere in the clouds. Still, he doesn't hate his enemies, and he doesn't love his countrymen. In fact, his real attachment is to his little local village. And nobody forced him into this business either. Some weird impulse drove him to join the military. At least in the military, he says, his life won't be just some waste of breath.

Lines 1-2

I know that I shall meet my fate 

Somewhere among the clouds above;

• The speaker begins with a certainty: he knows he will meet his fate "somewhere among the clouds above." Take it to the bank.
• "Fate" can mean any number of things, but in a poem with "death" in the title it means… exactly that. Sub in "I know that I shall meet my death" and you see how cheerful these opening lines are. Sheesh.
• As for that bit about the clouds above, the speaker is an airman. No, that doesn't mean he's made of air, or really likes air. It means he's a pilot, a fighter pilot like Maverick in Top Gun.
• The way the speaker talks about the "clouds above" makes us think he's standing on the ground, looking up. He's daydreaming, or rather day-nightmare-ing. 
• If he were already in his plane, he would have said "among the clouds right here" or "clouds around me."
• By the way, why is he so certain he will meet his fate? Good question. We actually have no clue. Okay, well we sort of do. Yeats wrote this poem in 1918, right in the middle of World War I, and the Irish Airman he has in mind fought in World War I (head over to "In a Nutshell" for more).
• Anyway, pretty much everybody died in World War I. Well, not everybody but a ton of people. Also, airplanes were pretty new, so they weren't exactly as safe as they are now. It wasn't like the speaker was cruising on a Southwest Airbus seven-thirty-whatever. He would have been in something that looked like this. Not too safe!

Lines 3-4

Those that I fight I do not hate 

Those that I guard I do not love;

• Ahh, nothing like some anaphora 
  to get us moving here. Come to think of it, it's like a mega-anaphora (and doesn't mega-anaphora sound like a monster that Godzilla would fight?). These lines are exactly the same— except for two words.
• The speaker doesn't hate those he's fighting, but he also doesn't love those he guards. And yes, the sentences do seem to be in a weird, reversed order here.
• In normal speech we would say "I do not hate those that I fight" and "I do not love those that I guard," but this is poetry, so the syntax is reversed. There are no rules! Or, at least, poetry's a place where rules can be twisted into cool, pretzel-y knots.
• It sounds really cool to write like that, but we suspect our man Yeats is probably trying to engage in some rhythmic acrobatics. Head over to "Form and Meter" for more.
• Anyway, the speaker is describing the psychology of a soldier. He's forced to fight and defend his country, but he's not really up for either one of those tasks.
• He doesn't want to kill the enemy because he doesn't hate him, and he doesn't want to protect or "guard" his countrymen because he doesn't really love them.
• Those countrymen are probably the English.
• Biography note: You see, Robert Gregory (the airman who the poem is about) was Irish, but he was part of a British air squadron. So in a way he wasn't really guarding his own people, but those of Ireland's long-time nemesis, colonial overlord, really mean older bro: England. 
• So, if he doesn't hate anybody or love anybody, why is he in this darn war anyway? He's pretty much caught between a rock and a hard place. That's the best way to put it. 
• And hey, did you notice that this poem rhymes a little bit? We sure did. More precisely, the rhyme scheme looks to be ABAB, and the lines look like they're written in iambic tetrameter. If that sounds like gobbledygook to you, head over to "Form and Meter" for the deets.

Lines 5-8

My country is Kiltartan Cross,

My countrymen Kiltartan's poor, 

No likely end could bring them loss 

Or leave them happier than before.

• Lots to cover here. Let's start with this whole Kiltartan business. We can tell you that it doesn't have anything to do with kilts.
• As you've maybe guessed, Kiltartan Cross is a place in Ireland. In fact, it is the name of a barony in western Ireland (a barony is kind of like a county, but smaller).
• Kiltartan was home to one Lady Gregory, a very close friend of Yeats' who had this really awesome estate called Coole Park. (It was cool in all senses of the word.) 
• Yeats spent lots of time at Coole Park, which is why the volume that contains "An Irish Airman" is called The Wild Swans at Coole.
• The Irish airman named in the poem's title is Lady Gregory's son, Robert Gregory, who was killed in the First World War. Many of the poems in The Wilde Swans at Coole are about World War I and the way it affected Yeats.
• Now that we've gotten that squared away, let's get back to these lines.The speaker is on an anaphora kick, and uses it again in lines 5 and 6 ("My country"). 
• He says his country is "Kiltartan Cross" and that his countrymen are the poor people of Kiltartan. In other words, he feels more Kiltartan than he does Irish.
• The local is more important to him than the national. It would be like saying "my country is Texas, my countrymen Texas' poor" instead of "my country is the U.S.A."
• The speaker also says that "no likely end" will "bring them loss" or "leave them happier than before." The speaker is saying that no possible outcome of the war ("no likely end") will make the people of Kiltartan lose anything. They will have just as much, and will be just as peachy, as before the war. It sure sounds like nothing can affect the people of Kiltartan.
• More than that, this is the speaker's bizarre way of saying that the war is pointless. It won't really change anything for these folks in Ireland.
• But that's a puzzling thing to say. The war will definitely affect them. How will the loss of one of its residents, the airman of the title, not "bring them loss"? 
• Looks like these four lines are a group too, just like the first four (a group of four lines in poetry is called a quatrain). They rhyme CDCD—more on that in "Form and Meter."

Lines 9-10

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, 

Nor public man, nor cheering crowds,

• Ah, finally we learn about the speaker's reasons for getting involved in this whole war. Basically, none of the normal reasons for joining the army, or in this case the air force, were involved.
• The law didn't make him go, neither did some sense of duty (to his country). No "public man" and no "cheering crowds" did either. We're not sure who this "public man" is, but it probably refers to a politician or official of some kind, maybe even a recruiter.
• Okay, so what made ("bade") him fight? We have a feeling that he's about to tell us why he really joined, but we'll have to wait…

Lines 11-12

A lonely impulse of delight 

Drove to this tumult in the clouds;

• But we don't have to wait very long, because he tells us right now! It was some "lonely impulse of delight" that made the speaker get involved in this fighter pilot business.
• Well, actually that impulse "drove" him to "this tumult in the clouds." (For rhythmic reasons, the line leaves out the "me," as in "Drove me to this tumult," but that's understood here.) In other words, some crazy impulse that was very pleasing forced the airman to get involved in this whole battlefield, or chaos ("tumult"), in the sky.
• Huh. It sounds like the speaker's reasons aren't very well defined at all. A lonely impulse of delight? 
• Okay, let's go through this piece by piece. Lonely? Well, this describes the impulse: there's just one impulse affecting the speaker. So what about that impulse?
• Well, it makes the whole business sound like a really, well, impulsive decision—hasty, not thought out, an impulse. And it's an impulse, a sensation, an idea, a feeling that is… delightful! 
• Now, we know the speaker calls it an impulse, but it's a bit different than, say, deciding on a whim to buy that piece of candy sitting right by the cash register at Walgreens (curse you, delicious Butterfinger!).
• It's an impulse, but an impulse that is more like a calling, a powerful sense of destiny or duty. He's not just driven by pleasure, he's driven by the pleasure he feels when he thinks about signing up for the military. It's like an itch that has to be scratched (not that we're trivializing it or anything). 
• Meanwhile, like the first eight lines, this group of four goes together as well, and they rhyme EFEF, as our "Form and Meter" section will explain.

Lines 13-14

I balanced all, brought all to mind, 

The years to come seemed waste of breath,

• Okay, well it turns out that the speaker's decision wasn't actually super-duper-impulsive, after all. He "balanced all" and "brought all to mind," which is to say he weighed the pros and cons and thought everything through.
• After this little balancing act, he came to the conclusion that the future ("years to come") "seemed waste of breath." In other words, he decided that his life would just be a waste of breath anyway, so why not join?
• Woah, woah, woah! Hold on a second. How would his life be a waste of breath? Was his life really that pointless? 
• Maybe, but then again, he might be saying this but implying a comparison with life as a soldier. He could be thinking something like: "Well, compared to a glorious life, fighting for my country, and dying a hero, my normal life seemed a total waste."
• So, it's kind of like joining the army is a way to turn one's life from a waste into a something worthwhile. The same goes for that bit about the future being a waste of breath as well.
• This is pretty depressing, but is he being serious? Now that we think of it, it's possible that the speaker is being ironic. 
• It could be ironic in the sense that he doesn't actually think his past and future are a waste of breath. In fact, saying that life is a waste of breath unless you do something great and awesome and heroic kind of sounds like something a military recruiter would say.
• A modernized version might go something like this: "Yeah sure, I'll sign up for the army—not like my life matters or anything, not like I have anything better to do than die in a war that is pointless anyway."
• Be careful, however. We don't know for sure what the speaker's tone is. Irony is a possibility. At the same time, it's also possible that he's being totally serious. Let's keep reading for more clues…

Lines 15-16 

A waste of breath the years behind

In balance with this life, this death.

• The hopeless tone continues as the speaker tells us that the past ("years behind") was also a waste of breath.
• What is more, the future and the past seemed like a "waste of breath" when compared ("in balance") with "this life, this death." Okay now wait a minute, this put a different paint job on things.
• At first, it sounds like the speaker is saying that the past and the future are pointless. This is an absolutely depressing, hopeless thing to say. We really can't believe our speaker would think something like this…
• … but then our fears are proved wrong! The enjambment tricks us into thinking the speaker thinks one thing when in fact he thinks something related but slightly (and importantly) different. Ah, Yeats you crafty fellow!
• The past and the future aren't totally pointless, just pointless when compared to something else, in this case probably life and death as a war hero.
• Hmm. Earlier, the speaker had talked about not loving those he protects and not hating those he kills, so what's with all this pro-soldier's-life business?
• Well, we've got a few possibilities we can try out here. First, maybe the speaker has just flat-out changed his mind and now thinks that war is, in fact, a heroic business.
• It's also possible that the speaker doesn't really think dying in battle is all that great. He could be speaking ironically, meaning that everything isn't, in fact, a waste of breath.
• So why not just say that then? Probably because being sarcastic, or ironic, about it makes the point a little more forceful.
• Think of it like this. Your mom tells you right before you leave the house that she needs you to out of your way to pick up some apples at the store. You're late and say, "Okay mom no problem. I really have nothing else to do." See what we mean? (Oh, and don't really say that to your mom, gang. Be nice.)
• So, there are really two fundamental ways to read this poem. Either the airman is lamenting the fact that he's going to die in war, or he's embracing it. Which side do you take?
• As with the previous twelve lines, these last four are also a little group that rhymes GHGH, as we talk about in our "Form and Meter" section.