Three women that have wrought
What joy is in my days:
One because no thought,
Nor those unpassing cares,
No, not in these fifteen
Many-times-troubled years,
Could ever come between
Mind and delighted mind;
And one because her hand
Had strength that could unbind
What none can understand,
What none can have and thrive,
Youth’s dreamy load, till she
So changed me that I live
Labouring in ecstasy.
And what of her that took
All till my youth was gone
With scarce a pitying look?
How could I praise that one?
When day begins to break
I count my good and bad,
Being wakeful for her sake,
Remembering what she had,
What eagle look still shows,
While up from my heart’s root
So great a sweetness flows
I shake from head to foot.
Poem Analysis:
W. B. Yeats’s poem Friends is a reflective poem in which the speaker looks back on three women who have profoundly influenced his life. Rather than presenting friendship and love as simple sources of happiness, Yeats explores the complicated relationship between affection, suffering, memory, and personal transformation. The poem suggests that both joy and pain can become lasting forces in a person’s identity.
The poem begins with the speaker declaring that he must “praise” three women because each has contributed to the “joy” of his days. The first woman represents intellectual and emotional companionship. Nothing, not even the speaker’s cares and troubles, could come between their minds. The phrase “delighted mind” emphasizes a relationship based not merely on affection but on a deep meeting of intellect and spirit. This woman therefore represents the sustaining power of genuine companionship.
The second woman has a different influence. She possesses a strength capable of releasing the speaker from “Youth’s dreamy load.” This suggests that youth, although often associated with freedom and happiness, can also carry burdens of immaturity, illusion, and emotional uncertainty. Through her influence, the speaker is transformed: he becomes someone who lives “Labouring in ecstasy.” The paradox of “labouring” and “ecstasy” captures Yeats’s idea that meaningful achievement often involves both struggle and intense joy.
The third woman is presented in a much more painful way. She took almost everything from the speaker’s youth “with scarce a pitying look.” At first, the speaker seems unable to praise her. Yet the poem gradually reveals that even this painful relationship has left behind a powerful emotional legacy. He remembers her “eagle look,” and the memory produces such intense sweetness that he physically trembles. The contradiction between loss and sweetness is central to the poem: suffering does not simply disappear but can become transformed into memory, art, and emotional depth.
Yeats’s language is especially effective because the poem moves between abstract ideas and physical sensations. Words such as “mind,” “cares,” “strength,” and “youth” express psychological experience, while images such as the “eagle look” and the speaker shaking “from head to foot” make his emotions vivid and bodily. The final image suggests that memory remains rooted deeply within him.
The poem also demonstrates Yeats’s characteristic interest in the passage of time. The speaker looks backward from the present and measures his life through relationships that have changed him. The women are therefore more than individual figures: each represents a different force in the speaker’s development—companionship, transformation, and painful desire.
Friends presents human relationships as complex and lasting influences. Yeats does not divide his experiences neatly into happiness and suffering. Instead, he suggests that love, friendship, loss, and memory can exist together and continue to shape a person long after the original experiences have passed. The poem’s final sweetness therefore comes not from forgetting the past, but from recognizing how deeply the past has become part of the self.