The Wild Swans at Coole — William Butler Yeats
B. Yeats. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org . If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title : The Wild Swans at Coole Author : W. B. Yeats Release date : May 23, 2010 [eBook #32491] Most recently updated: January 6, 2021 Language : English Other information and formats : www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32491 Credits : Produced by Meredith Bach and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) *** START OF , Limited LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO THE WILD SWANS AT COOLE BY W. B. YEATS THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1919 All rights reserved Copyright, 1917 and 1918 , By MARGARET C. ANDERSON. Copyright, 1918 , By HARRIET MONROE. Copyright, 1918 and 1919 , By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1919. J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. PREFACE This book is, in part, a reprint of The Wild Swans at Coole , printed a year ago on my sister's hand-press at Dundrum, Co. Dublin. I have not, however, reprinted a play which may be a part of a book of new plays suggested by the dance plays of Japan, and I have added a number of new poems. Michael Robartes and John Aherne, whose names occur in one or other of these, are characters in some stories I wrote years ago, who have once again become a part of the phantasmagoria through which I can alone express my convictions about the world. I have the fancy that I read the name John Aherne among those of men prosecuted for making a disturbance at the first production of "The Play Boy," which may account for his animosity to myself. W. B. Y. Ballylee, Co. Galway , September 1918 . CONTENTS page The Wild Swans at Coole 1 In Memory of Major Robert Gregory 4 An Irish Airman foresees his Death 13 Men improve with the Years 14 The Collar-Bone of a Hare 15 Under the Round Tower 17 Solomon to Sheba 19 The Living Beauty 21 A Song 22 To a Young Beauty 23 To a Young Girl 24 The Scholars 25 Tom O'Roughley 26 The Sad Shepherd 27 Lines written in Dejection 39 The Dawn 40 On Woman 41 The Fisherman 44 The Hawk 46 Memory 47 Her Praise 48 The People 50 His Phoenix 54 A Thought from Propertius 58 Broken Dreams 59 A Deep-Sworn Vow 63 Presences 64 The Balloon of the Mind 66 To a Squirrel at Kyle-Na-Gno 67 On being asked for a War Poem 68 In Memory of Alfred Pollexfen 69 Upon a Dying Lady 72 Ego Dominus Tuus 79 A Prayer on going into my House 86 The Phases of the Moon 88 The Cat and the Moon 102 The Saint and the Hunchback 104 Two Songs of a Fool 106 Another Song of a Fool 108 The Double Vision of Michael Robartes 109 Note 115 THE WILD SWANS AT COOLE 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? IN MEMORY OF MAJOR ROBERT GREGORY 1 Now that we're almost settled in our house I'll name the friends that cannot sup with us Beside a fire of turf in the ancient tower, And having talked to some late hour Climb up the narrow winding stair to bed: Discoverers of forgotten truth Or mere companions of my youth, All, all are in my thoughts to-night, being dead. 2 Always we'd have the new friend meet the old, And we are hurt if either friend seem cold, And there is salt to lengthen out the smart In the affections of our heart, And quarrels are blown up upon that head; But not a friend that I would bring This night can set us quarrelling, For all that come into my mind are dead. 3 Lionel Johnson comes the first to mind, That loved his learning better than mankind, Though courteous to the worst; much falling he Brooded upon sanctity Till all his Greek and Latin learning seemed A long blast upon the horn that brought A little nearer to his thought A measureless consummation that he dreamed. 4 And that enquiring man John Synge comes next, That dying chose the living world for text And never could have rested in the tomb But that, long travelling, he had come Towards nightfall upon certain set apart In a most desolate stony place, Towards nightfall upon a race Passionate and simple like his heart. 5 And then I think of old George Pollexfen, In muscular youth well known to Mayo men For horsemanship at meets or at race-courses, That could have shown how purebred horses And solid men, for all their passion, live But as the outrageous stars incline By opposition, square and trine; Having grown sluggish and contemplative. 6 They were my close companions many a year, A portion of my mind and life, as it were, And now their breathless faces seem to look Out of some old picture-book; I am accustomed to their lack of breath, But not that my dear friend's dear son, Our Sidney and our perfect man, Could share in that discourtesy of death. 7 For all things the delighted eye now sees Were loved by him; the old storm-broken trees That cast their shadows upon road