Under Ben Bulben (V and VI) – W.B. Yeats – Leaving Cert English

Context

The final sections of “Under Ben Bulben” serve as Yeats’s poetic last will and testament. Written in September 1938, just months before his death in January 1939, the poem was one of the last he composed. Yeats left instructions that it should be placed last in any collection of his work. Ben Bulben is a dramatic flat-topped mountain in County Sligo, the landscape that shaped Yeats’s imagination from childhood. Sections V and VI are the prescribed portions for the 2027 Leaving Certificate. Section V delivers Yeats’s final instructions to Irish poets and artists, while Section VI contains his famous self-composed epitaph. Together, they represent Yeats’s attempt to speak from beyond the grave, shaping how future generations would think about art, Ireland, and death itself.

Summary

In Section V, Yeats addresses Irish poets directly, commanding them to learn their craft properly and to take their subjects from Irish life. He insists that poets should celebrate the peasantry, the lords and ladies of the Anglo-Irish tradition, and the monks and scholars of early Christian Ireland. He is laying out a programme for Irish art, telling future writers what to value and what to avoid. He wants poetry that is rooted in place, tradition, and nobility of spirit. In Section VI, the tone shifts to something more personal and stark. Yeats describes his own burial place in Drumcliff churchyard, under bare Ben Bulben’s head, where an ancestor was once rector. The poem closes with his epitaph, carved on his gravestone: “Cast a cold eye / On life, on death. / Horseman, pass by!”

Analysis

Section V: Instructions to Irish Poets

Section V is essentially Yeats acting as a kind of artistic lawgiver. He begins with the blunt imperative “Irish poets, learn your trade” and proceeds to dictate the standards he believes Irish poetry should uphold. The tone is commanding and authoritative. Yeats does not ask or suggest; he tells. He wants poets to “sing” the peasantry, to celebrate “hard-riding country gentlemen,” and to draw on the deep well of Irish history and landscape. There is something deliberately old-fashioned about his vision. He is not interested in modernist experimentation for its own sake. He wants poetry rooted in real places, real people, and real traditions.

• “Irish poets, learn your trade” – The opening command sets the tone for the entire section. Yeats insists that poetry is a craft requiring discipline, not just inspiration. The word “trade” grounds the idea of poetry in work and skill.
• “Sing the peasantry” – Yeats wants Irish poets to celebrate ordinary rural people, connecting poetry to the land and its communities. This reflects his lifelong interest in folk culture and the West of Ireland.
• “Hard-riding country gentlemen” – This phrase captures the Anglo-Irish aristocratic world that Yeats admired. He saw these figures as embodying a kind of reckless courage and style that he wanted Irish culture to preserve.
• “The holiness of monks, and after / Porter-drinkers’ randy laughter” – A characteristic Yeats move, juxtaposing the sacred and the profane. He wants Irish poetry to embrace all of life, not just the respectable parts.
• “Cast your mind on other days” – Yeats instructs poets to look backward, to draw strength from history. He believed that a culture without connection to its past was rootless and weak.

Section VI: The Epitaph

Section VI is one of the most famous passages in all of Irish poetry. Yeats shifts from addressing other poets to speaking about himself, specifically about where he will be buried and what should be written on his grave. The tone becomes spare and cold, stripped of ornament. He describes Drumcliff churchyard with the precision of a map: “Under bare Ben Bulben’s head / In Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid.” The use of his own surname, spoken as if by someone else, gives the passage an eerie, posthumous quality. He is writing his own obituary.

• “Under bare Ben Bulben’s head” – The mountain looms over the burial site, connecting Yeats permanently to the Sligo landscape. “Bare” suggests something stripped down to essentials, which matches the tone of the epitaph.
• “An ancestor was rector there” – This grounds Yeats in a specific Protestant, Anglo-Irish lineage. His connection to Drumcliff is not accidental but historical, rooted in family.
• “No marble, no conventional phrase” – Yeats rejects the usual sentimental language of gravestones. He wants something harder and more honest.
• “Cast a cold eye / On life, on death. / Horseman, pass by!” – The epitaph itself. “Cast a cold eye” demands detachment, a refusal to sentimentalise either living or dying. The “Horseman” is a mysterious figure, perhaps representing the aristocratic ideal, perhaps simply any traveller. “Pass by” suggests that death is not something to linger over. This is Yeats at his most defiant and controlled.

Literary Devices

• Imperative mood: The poem is dominated by commands: “learn,” “sing,” “cast.” Yeats is not reflecting or wondering; he is ordering.
• Allusion: References to Irish history, to the Anglo-Irish tradition, and to Yeats’s own family create layers of meaning beneath the surface.
• Juxtaposition: Sacred monks and drinking porter-drinkers are placed side by side, insisting that art must embrace contradictions.
• Self-reference: Yeats names himself in the third person, creating a strange effect as though he has already died and is narrating from beyond.
• Epigrammatic style: The epitaph is compressed to its absolute essence. Every word carries weight, and nothing is wasted.
• Symbolism: Ben Bulben symbolises permanence, Ireland, and the ancient mythological landscape. The “Horseman” symbolises the aristocratic, active life that Yeats valued.

Mood

The mood of Section V is commanding and passionate. Yeats writes like a prophet delivering final instructions, urgent and certain. Section VI shifts to something colder and more austere. The tone becomes almost ceremonial, as though Yeats is conducting his own funeral. The final epitaph is deliberately chilling. There is no warmth, no sentimentality, no comfort offered. Yeats wants to be remembered not with tears but with a cold, clear-eyed acknowledgment that life and death are equally to be faced without flinching.

Themes

• The role of the poet: Yeats sees the poet as a craftsman with a responsibility to their culture. Poetry is not self-expression for its own sake but a duty to “sing” the life of a nation.
• Irish identity: The poem is deeply concerned with what Ireland is and should be. Yeats’s vision includes peasants, aristocrats, monks, and scholars, all part of a single cultural tradition.
• Death and legacy: By composing his own epitaph, Yeats tries to control how he will be remembered. Death is not feared but faced with aristocratic coolness.
• Tradition and continuity: Yeats insists on the importance of looking back to the past. He sees art as a chain linking generations, and he wants to ensure the chain continues after his death.
• Nobility and defiance: The epitaph embodies a particular attitude toward existence: cold, proud, and unflinching. This is the Yeatsian ideal of the aristocratic spirit.

Pitfalls

• Treating the epitaph as the whole poem: Many students focus only on “Cast a cold eye” and ignore Section V. Both sections are prescribed and both need to be discussed.
• Misreading “cold” as uncaring: “Cast a cold eye” does not mean Yeats did not care about life. It means he believed in facing existence with courage and clarity, not sentimentality.
• Ignoring the Anglo-Irish dimension: Yeats’s celebration of “country gentlemen” and his Protestant family connection to Drumcliff are important to understanding his particular vision of Ireland.
• Not connecting to other poems: These sections work powerfully alongside “Sailing to Byzantium” and “An Acre of Grass” as late works dealing with death and legacy. Examiners reward students who make these connections.

Rapid Revision Drills

• What instructions does Yeats give to Irish poets in Section V? Why are these important?
• What is the effect of Yeats referring to himself in the third person in Section VI?
• Explain the meaning and significance of the epitaph: “Cast a cold eye / On life, on death. / Horseman, pass by!”
• How does Yeats use the landscape of Sligo in this poem?
• Compare Yeats’s attitude to death in this poem with his attitude in “Sailing to Byzantium.”

Conclusion

Sections V and VI of “Under Ben Bulben” are Yeats’s final artistic statement. In Section V, he plays the role of master poet, issuing commands to the next generation about what Irish poetry should be. In Section VI, he steps back and writes his own ending with the precision of a stonemason carving an inscription. The famous epitaph is perhaps the most quoted three lines in Irish poetry, and for good reason: it captures Yeats’s entire philosophy in miniature. For Leaving Certificate students, these sections offer rich material for essays on Yeats’s themes of death, legacy, Irish identity, and the role of the poet. They connect naturally to “An Acre of Grass,” “Sailing to Byzantium,” and “September 1913” as explorations of what endures when the individual life is over.

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