Memory in In Memory of Eva Gore Booth

Yeats explores the affects of ageing and time on two of his dearest friends, Eva Gore Booth and Con Markievicz. The two sisters were two of the most famous women during the Irish revolution who fought for women's rights, as well as helping commoners in Ireland. Yeats highlights that the beauty and elegance of these two women are no more, and only exist in the form of memories. Similarly, he reminisces over the change in beauty in his muse Maud Gonne in the poem ‘Broken Dreams', which may be ‘vague' but detailed enough for him to appreciate them. Furthermore Yeats highlights that his key memories of the many women in his life such as Eva, Constance and Maud are of their appearance rather than their personality traits. Those memories of their ‘beauty' will forever be cherished in ‘some vague Utopia'.

Yeats describes Eva and Constance as ‘two girls in silk kimonos', which suggests that he remembers them as youthful, pure girls rather than the grown women that they are. This is further emphasised in the line, ‘Beautiful, one a gazelle'. This metaphor describes Eva as a ‘gazelle', a graceful and slender antelope. Therefore this suggests he admires the former women and saw them as ‘beautiful', attractive and pretty only when they were young. Also this refrain throughout the poem expresses a sombre mood and mournful tone, making the poem appear to sound elegiac towards the dead women and commemorating them. Like wise in ‘Easter 1916' a reference to Constance was made in the line ‘What voice more sweet than hers' portraying her as a girl with a charming voice, however he then realises this voice then ‘grew shrill', her charming voice is now high pitched and piercing, therefore she has lost her endearing voice.

Yeats describes his memories in ‘In Memory of Eva Gore Booth and Con Markievicz' as ‘pictures of the mind'. This suggests that the images in his head are vivid and clear, however although these images will always leave a mark in Yeats' mind, like photographs they will fade over time, and so will the beauty of these two girls in silk kimonos. As he describes these images as ‘pictures'