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“The Wild Swans at Coole” – William Butler Yeats

“The Wild Swans at Coole” – William Butler Yeats.


"The Wild Swans at Coole" is a lyric poem by the Irish poet William Butler Yeats (1865–1939). Written between 1916 and early 1917, the poem was first published in the June 1917 issue of the Little Review, and became the title poem in the Yeats's 1917 and 1919 collections  The Wild Swans at Coole.
 William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, he helped the foundation of the Abbey Theatre.

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?
The Poet walks down the dry woodland paths towards the water which mirrors the still October twilight of the sky. And there upon the water floats “nine-and-fifty swans.”

The poet says that nineteen autumns has passed; nineteen years have passed since he came first time near the water and counted the swans. That first time he saw the swans mount up into the sky and scatter.

The poet says that his heart is aching, because for after nineteen autumns of watching and being cheered by the swans, he finds that everything in his life has changed now. The swans are still tireless, though they paddle by in the water or fly by in the air in pairs. Their hearts still “have not grown cold’. 

But now, they are “Mysterious, beautiful,” and the poet is curious to know where they will build their nests, and by what lake’s edge or pool. So that he could know where they are when he awakes one morning to find that they have flown away.

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