“Adam's Curse” Summary

“Adam's Curse” Themes

• 

  The Difficulty of Creating Beauty

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• 

  Romantic Weariness and Disillusionment

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Adam's Curse”

• Lines 1-6

  We sat together at one summer’s end,
  That beautiful mild woman, your close friend,   
  And you and I, and talked of poetry.
  I said, ‘A line will take us hours maybe;
  Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought,   
  Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.   

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 7-11

  Better go down upon your marrow-bones   
  And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones   
  Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;   
  For to articulate sweet sounds together
  Is to work harder than all these,

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 11-14

  and yet   
  Be thought an idler by the noisy set
  Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen   
  The martyrs call the world.’

  

  

  

  

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• Between Lines 14-15, Lines 15-17

  And thereupon
  That beautiful mild woman for whose sake   
  There’s many a one shall find out all heartache   
  On finding that her voice is sweet and low   

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 18-22

  Replied, ‘To be born woman is to know—
  Although they do not talk of it at school—
  That we must labour to be beautiful.’
  I said, ‘It’s certain there is no fine thing   
  Since Adam’s fall but needs much labouring.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 23-27

  There have been lovers who thought love should be   
  So much compounded of high courtesy   
  That they would sigh and quote with learned looks   
  Precedents out of beautiful old books;   
  Yet now it seems an idle trade enough.’

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 28-29

  We sat grown quiet at the name of love;   
  We saw the last embers of daylight die,   

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 30-33

  And in the trembling blue-green of the sky   
  A moon, worn as if it had been a shell   
  Washed by time’s waters as they rose and fell   
  About the stars and broke in days and years.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 34-38

  I had a thought for no one’s but your ears:   
  That you were beautiful, and that I strove   
  To love you in the old high way of love;
  That it had all seemed happy, and yet we’d grown   
  As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.

  

  

  

  

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“Adam's Curse” Symbols

• 

  The Moon

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• 

  The End of Summer

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“Adam's Curse” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Alliteration

  

  

  

  

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• Assonance

  

  

  

  

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• Metaphor

  

  

  

  

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• Simile

  

  

  

  

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• Enjambment

  

  

  

  

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• Repetition

  

  

  

  

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• Allusion

  

  

  

  

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• Caesura

  

  

  

  

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“Adam's Curse” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Mild
• Stitching and unstitching
• Marrow-bones
• Pavement
• Pauper
• Idler
• The martyrs
• Thereupon
• Labour/Labouring
• Adam's fall
• Compounded
• Courtesy
• Precedents
• Idle
• Embers
• Strove

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Adam's Curse”

• Form

• Meter

• Rhyme Scheme

“Adam's Curse” Speaker

“Adam's Curse” Setting

Literary and Historical Context of “Adam's Curse”

More “Adam's Curse” Resources

• External Resources

  • The Curse of Adam — Read Genesis 3 (about "Adam's curse" and the expulsion from Eden) in the original Hebrew and in English translation.

  • A Letter from Gonne to Yeats — Read an ambiguously romantic letter from Maud Gonne (the "you" of "Adam's Curse") to Yeats.

  • A Reading of the Poem — Listen to "Adam's Curse" read aloud by poet Robert Pinsky.

  • More on Yeats and Gonne — A New York Times piece about the correspondence and tumultuous relationship between W. B. Yeats and Maud Gonne.

  • The Poet's Life and Writing — Read a biography of Yeats at the Poetry Foundation.

  • Paul Muldoon on Yeats — Acclaimed Irish poet Paul Muldoon discusses Yeats's life and works.

• LitCharts on Other Poems by William Butler Yeats

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  • An Irish Airman Foresees his Death

  • A Prayer for my Daughter

  • Byzantium

  • Easter, 1916

  • He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

  • In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markievicz

  • Lapis Lazuli

  • Leda and the Swan

  • Sailing to Byzantium

  • September 1913

  • The Lake Isle of Innisfree

  • The Second Coming

  • The Song of Wandering Aengus

  • The Wild Swans at Coole

  • To a Shade

  • When You Are Old