‘An Acre of Grass’ is a poem written by William Butler Yeats, published in 1939 posthumously in the collection of his “Last Poems”. The poem is a 4-stanza poem, each stanza in the form of a sestet and with the fusion of both perfect and slant rhymes. The poem deals with the themes of loneliness, old age, and agitation.

An Acre of Grass | Summary & Analysis

An Acre of Grass | Analysis, Stanza 1

PICTURE and book remain,

An acre of green grass

For air and exercise,

Now, the strength of the body goes;

Midnight, an old house

Where nothing stirs but a mouse.

Picture and book, and an acre of green grass are the things that the narrator possesses, possibly in the later stage of his life. He spends his leisure time drawing, reading books, and exercising in the small green land. He lives in an old house with his old body with no strength, where nothing but a mouse runs around.

The narrator in the first stanza talks about the things that he has in his life. The pictures and books to keep himself engaged, and an acre of green land for fresh air and exercise. This stanza shows that the narrator is old and lonely, as nothing is heard in the house except a mouse moving around.

An Acre of Grass | Analysis, Stanza 2

II

My temptation is quiet.

Here at life’s end

Neither loose imagination,

Nor the mill of the mind

Consuming its rag and bone,

Can make the truth known.

The narrator has become dejected and has no attraction or temptation. But in his old age, neither his creativity nor his imagination can make the truth known.

Old age has brought him poise and taken away his greed or attraction for anything. He has become forlorn with his age, but his artistic imagination and creativity stand intact, and they help him mask his sadness.

An Acre of Grass | Analysis, Stanza 3

III

Grant me an old man’s frenzy,

Must I remake

Till I am Timon and Lear

Or that William Blake

Who beat upon the wall

Till Truth obeyed his call;

The narrator is afraid of being idle in his old age and asks for passion to remake himself. With his artistic imagination, he can express his emotions like Timon, Lear, or William Blake, who looked for the truth till they found it. The narrator is desperate to have passion and zest in his life so that he can use them to express his emotions through imagination. 

The enthusiasm and passion that he asks for will give him emotional strength, and he is determined to have them despite his body slowly giving in to time. He wants to express his emotions and feelings through his creativity, like  Timon, the protagonist of the play ‘Timon of Athens by Shakespeare, Lear, the protagonist of ‘King Lear by Shakespeare, and William Blake, a prominent figure in the history of the Romantic Age.

An Acre of Grass | Analysis, Stanza

IV

A mind Michael Angelo knew

That can pierce the clouds,

Or inspired by frenzy

Shake the dead in their shrouds;

Forgotten else by mankind,

An old man’s eagle mind.

A mind like Michael Angelo’s can pierce the clouds or awaken the dead from their graves; be forgotten otherwise by mankind with a vigilant mind.

The narrator desires to be like Michael Angelo and excel like him in artistic production. Through his passion, he will shake the dead in the grave. He prays for such zeal to be like Michael Angelo, to have a mind of high thinking and creativity, so that he is not forgotten by mankind.

Critical Analysis of An Acre of Grass

The poem reflects the narrator’s old age and how, with old age, he has lost his vigour and zest. He lives a lonely life with pictures and books as his only companions. The stirring of the mouse in his house can be imagery to show how lonely he is and how desolate his house is. The narrator explains that his old age has nothing to do with his loose imagination. His creative abilities disguise his age. He explains how he is capable of artistic imagination even though his body is being wasted away with age. He is desperate to have some passion and zest in his life so that he can use his artistic imagination to express himself. He uses the instance of Lear, Timon, and Blake, who have expressed themselves outrageously and brought forward their emotions. He again talks about the frenzy that he desires, to convey his feelings and thoughts.

The poet tries to explain that age has nothing to do with passion and imagination. He desires zeal, passion, and enthusiastic imagination. Age has made him free himself from the greed of temptation, but it is the zeal that he desires. He has a fresh mind that can create works of artistic value. He defies the decaying of his mind with the slow decay of his body. To avoid being forgotten by mankind, he wishes to excel in his artistic contributions like Michael Angelo, who looks for truth in his artistic creations.

An old man living in solitude who believes his age has nothing to do with his passion and zeal and desire to be like Michael Angelo, to use his artistic creativity to express himself and live forever within mankind through his work. 

The poem sets a tone of sadness and loneliness in the first stanza, which shifts to optimistic and confessional in the second stanza,  outrageous in the third, and quiet in the fourth stanza.

There is loneliness and calmness when the narrator talks about his possessions and his house. His books and his pictures are his companions and a house where there is no one except a mouse. The tone then shifts in the second stanza, where he confesses how he doesn’t desire any temptation. In the third stanza, the narrator wants to stand out and express his thoughts. In the fourth stanza, he desires to be like Michael Angelo and not be forgotten by mankind.

The narrator doesn’t hint at self-pity, but it is about his confident self who wants to fly high with his imagination. He expresses his faith in the last two stanzas, where he desires enthusiasm and outrageousness like Blake, Lear, Timon, and Michael Angelo.

The poet talks about zest, but it is different from any kind of Romantic zest, untouched by self-pity. The poem represents the last days of Yeats. He had achieved fame, living his happy life, slowly walking towards death in his old age. He is an intelligent man acquainted with everything that makes a person wise. His letters to Olivia Shakespeare repeatedly show that he feared knowing it all would strip him of passionate experience, and that is the foundation of all the poetry during his last years. He desired frenzy, with his growing age, as it was the one thing he didn’t get to experience, and hence the narrator’s desire for frenzy reflects his own.

An Acre of Grass | Poetic Devices 

Alliteration is used in the poem in the second line of the first stanza “Green Grass”, in the second stanza “life..lose”, “mill of the mind” and in the fourth stanza “shake..shrouds”.

Imagery is shown in “Nothing Stirs but a Mouse”, which reflects the narrator’s loneliness. “Rag and bone” suggests the flesh of the narrator.

Unconventional metaphors are used in the poem, old house refers to the narrator’s old body, eagle’s mind refers to the clarity of mind. 

An Acre of Grass | Themes

Agitation and loneliness

The poem sets the tone of loneliness when the narrator introduces their companions to the readers. He explains how he has the books and pictures to spend his time and the acre of grass for exercise. It is he and a mouse that reside in the house. He says that a decaying body has nothing to do with zeal and passion. He doesn’t desire temptation, but it is the frenzy he desires. With his old age, he is agitated that he will be forgotten with his death.

He desires to be expressive and outrageous like Lear, Timon, and William Blake. He desires to show his emotions through artistic expression, and he wants to be like Michael Angelo, who has a mind like his that pierces through the clouds, and shakes the dead in the grave, to have similar artistic creativity so that he is not forgotten by mankind.

An Acre of Grass | Literary Technique

Yeats never confined his writing to the traditional form of modernism and hence never used the free verse of modernism. “An acre of grass” is a conventional poem with the rhyming scheme ABCBDD, which consists of both perfect and slant rhymes. The poem consists of 4 stanzas or sestets and is written in iambic trimeter.

About the Author,

William Butler Yeats wrote “An Acre of Grass” in 1936, and it was published posthumously along with some other works in the collection of his “Last Poems” in 1939. He was one of the most prominent figures of 20th-century literature, who had won the first Irish Nobel Prize for his contributions to literature. His early poems focused on the myths and legends of Ireland. He defied the conventions of traditional modernist form and wrote poetry in his own style. The poem “An Acre of Grass” was written by him during his stay in Dublin during the last years of his life, and the “acre of grass” beside his house influenced the writing of the poem.