An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

By 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 men, 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.

In last year’s English class, we briefly skimmed over a poem titled “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death” by W.B. Yeats. I remember discussing it for a few short moments, and then moving on to another topic. It stayed with me, though, and now I am getting the chance to look more deeply into its meaning.

One of the first emotions I felt while reading this poem was confusion. Who is this Irish Airman, and why is he risking his life for a cause he has no emotional connection to? The Airman states that he does not love those he fights for, and that he does not hate those he fights against. He later mentions that the war will have no effect on the people of his home in Kiltartan Cross.  After looking into where and what exactly Kiltartan Cross is, I discovered that it is a small barony in Ireland. This is especially strange considering the Airman refers to Kiltartan as his country, which signifies that he has little nationalism for Ireland as a whole. Both this anaphora and the “lonely impulse of delight” he describes in the poem are enough to let us assume that he is fighting for himself and not for others.

We are then called to question what this lonely impulse of delight is, and why it is such a motivating factor that it compels the Airman to meet his fate. The answer to this can be found in the final quatrain of the poem. The Airman emphasizes the detachment he feels from his life by stating that his past was nothing but a waste of breath, as will be the future. He desires a sense of accomplishment that he can only conjure from within, and in his mind the only way to achieve this is to put his life in death's hands. In this way, we are left with conflicting emotions, viewing his situation as both tragic and heroic.