W.B. Yeats - Mad As The Mist And Snow
Bolt and bar the shutter, For the foul winds blow: Our minds are at their best this night, And I seem to know That everything outside us is Mad as the mist and snow. Horace there by Homer stands, Plato stands below, And here is Tully's open page. How many years ago Were you and I unlettered lads Mad as the mist and snow? You ask what makes me sigh, old friend, What makes me shudder so? I shudder and I sigh to think That even Cicero And many-minded Homer were Mad as the mist and snow.
William Butler Yeats was a master of language. There’s a reason he’s so widely studied. He initially focused on traditional forms but, as his career progressed, leaned heavily into free verse. His poems are rich with layers of meaning, clever wordplay and vivid imagery that invite readers to revisit them and discover new interpretations with each pass.
I previously spoke about Kerry Hardie’s poem “Bolt the Shutters.” That poem gets its name from the opening line of Yeats’ “Mad as The Mist and Snow.” The traditional reading focuses on the second stanza, in which Yeats ties being unlettered to being mad as the mist and snow. In this, the refrain is given the solid meaning of a lack of education.
However, the first stanza seems to imply something else. His opening line encourages his silent companion to "bolt and bar the shutter,” which if taken alongside the metaphor would suggest that he believes there is some mental reinforcement required after having obtained knowledge to protect against its lack. This doesn’t make sense and means we must revisit the metaphor of the cold. Maybe instead of a lack of education, it is a wild state of unknowing that one experiences in the chaos of childhood and again in the senility of old age.
First, let’s take a quick break to admire the flow:
“Bolt and bar the shutter,/ For the foul winds blow: Our minds are at their best this night, And I seem to know That everything outside us is Mad as the mist and snow.”
The poem’s rhythmic flow reveals Yeats’ background was heavily rooted in meter.
The final stanza confronts a harsh reality – even the greatest minds succumb to a kind of "cold madness" over time. Only for so long can one keep the shutters closed, and that fact makes Yeats’ shudder. The cold has gotten in, despite his having tried to shield himself through knowledge. In this Yeats addresses the impact that aging has on the mind. The transformation from "lads" to "old friend" underscores the passage of time and the growing risk of feeling the numbing effects of the "mist and snow."