Page:Ideas of Good and Evil, Yeats, 1903.djvu/23

What is 'Popular Poetry'?

Thou art the door of the chief of hospitality,

Thou art the surpassing pilot star,

Thou art the step of the deer of the hill,

Thou art the step of the horse of the plain,

Thou art the grace of the sun rising,

Thou art the loveliness of all lovely desires.

The lovely likeness of the Lord

Is in thy pure face,

The loveliest likeness that was upon earth.

I soon learned to cast away one other illusion of 'popular poetry.' I learned from the people themselves, before I learned it from any book, that they cannot separate the idea of an art or a craft from the idea of a cult with ancient technicalities and mysteries. They can hardly separate mere learning from witchcraft, and are fond of words and verses that keep half their secret to themselves. Indeed, it is certain that before the counting-house had created a new class and a new art without breeding and without ancestry, and set this art and this class between the hut and the castle, and between the hut and the cloister, the art of the people was as closely mingled 13