The Circus Animals' Desertion - W.B. Yeats
A Final Quest for Poetic Inspiration and Self-Encounter
I
I sought a theme and sought for it in vain;
I sought it daily for six weeks or so.
Maybe at last, being but a broken man,
I must be satisfied with my heart, although
Winter and summer till old age began
My circus animals were all on show,
Those stilted boys, that burnished chariot,
Lion and woman and the Lord knows what.
What can I but enumerate old themes?
First that sea-rider Oisin led by the nose
Through three enchanted islands, allegorical dreams,
Vain gaiety, vain battle, vain repose,
Themes of the embittered heart, or so it seems,
That might adorn old songs or fill new rows
Of printed pages. I thought my dear must be
Some theme as lovely as a tree.
II
Under the waves of the moon, I swam to the East,
And found there nothing but a storied wrath;
Turned westward, dreamily, to find at least
Old kinsmen under a glimmering path;
Yet neither land nor men had I released
From that old bondage. All was aftermath
Of fables vainly told. Still lion and woman,
Still stilted boy, still wonders superhuman.
Players and painted stage took all my love,
And not those things that they were emblems of.
Those masterful images because complete
Grew in pure mind, but out of what began?
A mound of refuse or the sweepings of a street,
Old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can,
Old iron, old bones, old rags, that raving slut
Who keeps the till. Now that my ladder’s gone,
I must lie down where all the ladders start,
In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.
Written in the twilight of his life, “The Circus Animals’ Desertion” finds W.B. Yeats lamenting his inability to discover a fresh poetic theme. Confronted with creative exhaustion, he revisits his earlier works—often represented by vivid allegorical figures (“circus animals”)—and realizes that their grandeur was rooted in deeper personal longings and insecurities.
In the poem, Yeats highlights how, across his career, he has tried to fuse lofty symbols with Ireland’s mythic past or his own romantic ideals. Yet here, near the end, he feels compelled to strip away ornament and acknowledge that all inspiration originates from the humble, unglamorous material of real experience—the “rag and bone shop of the heart.” The poem underscores Yeats’s shift from elaborate symbolism to a more direct honesty, facing mortality, unfulfilled desires, and a recognition that poetry is ultimately shaped by the raw truths of emotion.
The three-part structure of the poem reflects Yeats’s process of self-examination: first, he describes the difficulty of finding a new theme; second, he reconsiders the mythic illusions and theatrical devices he once relied upon; and in the final section, he concludes that the seedbed of art lies in the emotional and sometimes messy reality we often hide. By closing on the phrase “the foul rag and bone shop of the heart,” Yeats offers a final testament to the necessity—and the poignancy—of engaging with the deeper, less polished layers of one’s humanity.
Key points
1. Yeats’s ‘circus animals’ symbolize the mythic and theatrical images that defined his earlier poetic style.
2. The poem embodies Yeats’s acknowledgment that authentic creativity begins with personal and sometimes painful truths.
3. By emphasizing the ‘rag and bone shop of the heart,’ he underscores poetry’s intimate connection to raw human emotion.
4. “The Circus Animals’ Desertion” stands as a reflective summation of Yeats’s poetic evolution and final philosophical stance on imagination.