Effective Yeats Poem

The Three Monuments

THEY hold their public meetings where
Our most renowned patriots stand,
One among the birds of the air,
A stumpier on either hand;
And all the popular statesmen say
That purity built up the State
And after kept it from decay;
And let all base ambition be,
For intellect would make us proud
And pride bring in impurity:
The three old rascals laugh aloud.

This poem is interesting because the poem moves in one direction (with a patriotic and abstract feel) until the very last line, where it actually gets to the point. The rhyme scheme that Yeats uses (ABABCDC...) helps create a measured feel that matches with the image of a pompous politician. The way Yeats uses pronouns, too, is effective at creating a patriotic feel--"Our most renowned..." and "they hold their public meeting." Yeats uses so many key patriotic words--ambition, proud, intellect, popular, patriots--that the reader is expecting the entire message of the poem to be a solid endorsement of elected government...that's why it is so fresh when the last line is "the three old rascals laugh aloud." This is a much more accurate picture of politics--and a good example of Yeats' formal structure/style still having modern appeal.