The Wild Swans at Coole (poem)
- The Wild Swans at Coole (poem)
"The Wild Swans at Coole" is a poem written by the Irish poet William Butler Yeats. It is included in the 1919 collection "The Wild Swans at Coole". It was written during a period that Yeats was staying with his friend Lady Gregory at her home at Coole Park.
THE TREES are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty swans.
The nineteenth Autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.
I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.
Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold,
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.
But now they drift on the still water
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake’s edge or pool
Delight men’s eyes, when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?
NOTE: The poem deals with both the optimistic and pessimistic aspects of life. In one hand, it laments the old age, and on the other hand, it glorifies the vigor and freshness of the youth age. The First World War also looms over the poem - there is a sense of recent upheaval and catastrophe, and of irrevocable change.
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