"The Wild Swans at Coole" is a

lyric poem Modern lyric poetry is a formal type of poetry which expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person. It is not equivalent to song lyrics, though song lyrics are often in the lyric mode, and it is also ''not'' equi ...

by the

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

poet

William Butler Yeats William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...

(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 ''The Wild Swans at Coole'' is the name of two collections of poetry by W. B. Yeats, published in 1917 and 1919. Publication history ''The Wild Swans at Coole'', a collection of twenty-nine poems and the play ''At the Hawk's Well'', was first p ...

''. It was written during a period when Yeats was staying with his friend

Lady Gregory Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory (''née'' Persse; 15 March 1852 – 22 May 1932) was an Irish dramatist, folklorist and theatre manager. With William Butler Yeats and Edward Martyn, she co-founded the Irish Literary Theatre and the Abbey Theatre, ...

at her home at

Coole Park Coole Park is a nature reserve of approximately located a few miles west of Gort, County Galway, Ireland. It is managed by the Irish National Parks & Wildlife Service, part of the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. The park is i ...

, and the assembled collection was dedicated to her son, Major Robert Gregory (1881–1918), a British airman killed during a

friendly fire incident In military terminology, friendly fire or fratricide is an attack by belligerent or neutral country, neutral forces on friendly troops while attempting to attack enemy/hostile targets. Examples include misidentifying the target as hostile, cro ...

in the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Literary scholar Daniel Tobin writes that Yeats was melancholy and unhappy, reflecting on his advancing age, romantic rejections by both

Maud Gonne Maud Gonne MacBride ( ga, Maud Nic Ghoinn Bean Mhic Giolla Bhríghde; 21 December 1866 – 27 April 1953) was an English-born Irish republican revolutionary, suffragette and actress. Of Anglo-Irish descent, she was won over to Irish nationalism ...

and her daughter

Iseult Gonne Iseult Lucille Germaine Gonne (6 August 1894 – 22 March 1954) was the daughter of the Irish republican revolutionary Maud Gonne and the French politician and journalist Lucien Millevoye. She married the novelist Francis Stuart in 1920. ...

, and the ongoing Irish rebellion against the British. Tobin reflects that the poem is about the poet's search for a lasting beauty in a changing world where beauty is mortal and temporary.

Style and structure

The poem has a very regular stanza form: five six-line stanzas, each written in a roughly iambic meter, with the first and third lines in

tetrameter In poetry, a tetrameter is a line of four metrical feet. The particular foot can vary, as follows: * '' Anapestic tetrameter:'' ** "And the ''sheen'' of their ''spears'' was like ''stars'' on the ''sea''" (Lord Byron, "The Destruction of Sennach ...

, the second, fourth, and sixth lines in

trimeter In poetry, a trimeter (Greek for "three measure") is a metre of three metrical feet per line. Examples: : When here // the spring // we see, : Fresh green // upon // the tree. See also * Anapaest * Dactyl * Tristich A tercet is composed of ...

, and the fifth line in

pentameter Pentameter ( grc, πεντάμετρος, 'measuring five ( feet)') is a poetic meter. А poem is said to be written in a particular pentameter when the lines of the poem have the length of five feet, where a 'foot' is a combination of a particul ...

, so that the pattern of stressed syllables in each stanza is 434353. The

rhyme scheme A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes at the end of each line of a poem or song. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme; lines designated with the same letter all rhyme with each other. An example of the ABAB r ...

in each stanza is ABCBDD.

Poem

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?Yeats, William Butler, "The Wild Swans at Coole", ''The Wild Swans at Coole'' (New York/London: Macmillan and Company, 1919), 1–3.

Popular culture

In his LP ''Branduardi canta Yeats'' (1986),

Angelo Branduardi Angelo Branduardi (born 12 February 1950) is an Italian folk/folk rock singer-songwriter and composer who scored relative success in Italy and European countries such as France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands and Greece. Biography Branduardi wa ...

sings an Italian version (''I Cigni di Coole'') of this poem.

Style and structure

Poem

Popular culture

See also

References

External links