cast a cold eye on life and death horsemen ride by.what does it mean ?

Answer 1

somebody once told me that it means don't take life too seriously and you wont die young whether its true or not is open to lots of interpretation. he's a bit nuts but could be a genius i don't know.

Answer 2

It's the last verse of 'Under Ben Bulben' by W. B. Yeats. They are words engraved of a cross one of his ancestors had set up near a church. If it's punctuated properly it reads as an instruction to passing horsemen. I interpret it as advice to consider life and death as they come, without fear and to ride on.

Under Ben Bulben by W. B. Yeats

I

Swear by what the Sages spoke
Round the Mareotic Lake
That the Witch of Atlas knew,
Spoke and set the cocks a-crow.

Swear by those horsemen, by those women
Complexion and form prove superhuman,
That pale, long-visaged company
That air an immortality
Completeness of their passions won;
Now they ride the wintry dawn
Where Ben Bulben sets the scene.

Here's the gist of what they mean.

II

Many times man lives and dies
Between his two eternities,
That of race and that of soul,
And ancient Ireland knew it all.
Whether man die in his bed
Or the rifle knocks him dead,
A brief parting from those dear
Is the worst man has to fear.
Though grave-diggers' toil is long,
Sharp their spades, their muscles strong.
They but thrust their buried men
Back in the human mind again.

III

You that Mitchel's prayer have heard,
'Send war in our time, O Lord!'
Know that when all words are said
And a man is fighting mad,
Something drops from eyes long blind,
He completes his partial mind,
For an instant stands at ease,
Laughs aloud, his heart at peace.
Even the wisest man grows tense
With some sort of violence
Before he can accomplish fate,
Know his work or choose his mate.

IV

Poet and sculptor, do the work,
Nor let the modish painter shirk
What his great forefathers did.
Bring the soul of man to God,
Make him fill the cradles right.

Measurement began our might:
Forms a stark Egyptian thought,
Forms that gentler phidias wrought.

Michael Angelo left a proof
On the Sistine Chapel roof,
Where but half-awakened Adam
Can disturb globe-trotting Madam
Till her bowels are in heat,
Proof that there's a purpose set
Before the secret working mind:
Profane perfection of mankind.

Quattrocento put in paint
On backgrounds for a God or Saint
Gardens where a soul's at ease;
Where everything that meets the eye,
Flowers and grass and cloudless sky,
Resemble forms that are or seem
When sleepers wake and yet still dream.
And when it's vanished still declare,
With only bed and bedstead there,
That heavens had opened.

Gyres
run on;
When that greater dream had gone
Calvert and Wilson, Blake and Claude,
Prepared a rest for the people of God,
Palmer's phrase, but after that
Confusion fell upon our thought.

V

Irish poets, earn your trade,
Sing whatever is well made,
Scorn the sort now growing up
All out of shape from toe to top,
Their unremembering hearts and heads
Base-born products of base beds.
Sing the peasantry, and then
Hard-riding country gentlemen,
The holiness of monks, and after
Porter-drinkers' randy laughter;
Sing the lords and ladies gay
That were beaten into the clay
Through seven heroic centuries;
Cast your mind on other days
That we in coming days may be
Still the indomitable Irishry.

VI

Under bare Ben Bulben's head
In Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid.
An ancestor was rector there
Long years ago, a church stands near,
By the road an ancient cross.
No marble, no conventional phrase;
On limestone quarried near the spot
By his command these words are cut:

Cast a cold eye
On life, on death.
Horseman, pass by!

Answer 3

W.B. Yeats wrote the poem as an epitaph to himself. It starts "Under Bare Ben Bulbens head" . The actual headstone reads, as he instructed :

Cast a cold eye on life, on death. Horsemen, pass by. I believe he was giving an instruction to travellers to have a quick look and pass by lest they too end up under Ben Bulben which is a mountain in County Sligo. He is buried in the little churchyard in Drumcliff. Yeats died in France and his body was brought back later for burial as he wished in his beloved Ireland.

Of course I may be wrong and am sure someone with more knowledge of Yeats will correct me.

Answer 4

Means your not going to die die and that you should take the words life and death as you may understand them and not worry, you pass from here to there and maybe even back again, so lighten up even if you think the horseman is coming your way - hes only giving you direction not showing you your final destination...or maybe that's just my interpretation.....knew a lot about ancient knowledge did Mr Yeats.

Answer 5

I believe it means, ponder death as a reality, but don't get consumed by it; live your life despite the reality that we all die eventually. Look at death as subjective, as a problem for all, not just you, and keep plugging away at life regardless of the inevitable.

Answer 6

Television is produced to the cheapest common denominator - i.e., the average IQ of the general public, whereas a written publication is written to the highest common denominator

Answer 7

I love viewing television, I love the animal shows, the medical shows and the court and Judges shows

Answer 8

Take lightly life and death; The Horseman is death so taking life and death lightly maybe the horseman will miss me.

Answer 9

Only the good die young.