Summary

With the trees in their autumn beauty, the speaker walks down the dry woodland paths
to the water, which mirrors the still October twilight of the sky. Upon the water float
nine-and-fifty swans. The speaker says that nineteen years hae passed since he first
came to the water and counted the swans! that first time, before he had well finished, he
saw the swans mount up into the sky and scatter, whelling in great broken rings " Upon
their clamorous wings. The speaker says that his heart is sore, for after nineteen autumns
of watching and being cheered by the swans, he finds that eerything in his life has
changed. The swans, though, are still unwearied, and they paddle by in the water or fly by
in the air in pairs, loer by loer. Their hearts, the speaker says, hae not grown cold,
and whereer they go they are attended by passion or con#uest. $ut now, as they drift
oer the still water, they are %ysterious, beautiful, and the speaker wonders where they
will build their nests, and by what lake&s edge or pool they will delight men&s eyes,
when he awakes one morning to find that they hae flown away.
Form
The Wild 'wans at (oole is written in a ery regular stan)a form* fie si+-line stan)as,
each written in a roughly iambic meter, with the first and third lines in tetrameter, the
second, fourth, and si+th lines in trimeter, and the fifth line in pentameter, so that the
pattern of stressed syllables in each stan)a is ,-,-.-. The rhyme scheme in each stan)a is
/$($00.
Commentary
One of the most unusual features of 1eats&s poetic career is the fact that the poet came
into his greatest powers only as he neared old age! whereas many poets fade after the first
burst of youth, 1eats continued to grow more confident and more innoatie with his
writing until almost the day he died. Though he was a famous and successful writer in his
youth, his poetic reputation today is founded almost solely on poems written after he was
fifty. 2e is thus the great poet of old age, writing honestly and with astonishing force
about the pain of time&s passage and feeling that the ageless heart was fastened to a
dying animal, as he wrote in 'ailing to $y)antium. The great struggle that enliens
many of 1eats&s best poems is the struggle to uphold the integrity of the soul, and to
presere the mind&s connection to the deep heart&s core, despite physical decay and the
pain of memory.
The Wild 'wans at (oole, part of the 3434 collection of the same name, is one of
1eats&s earliest and most moing testaments to the heart-ache of liing in a time when
all&s changed. 5/nd when 1eats says /ll&s changed, changed utterly in the fifteen
years since he first saw the swans, he means it6the 7irst World War and the 8rish ciil
war both occurred during these years.9 The simple narratie of the poem, recounting the
poet&s trips to the lake at /ugusta :regory&s (oole ;ark residence to count the swans on
the water, is gien its solemn serenity by the beautiful nature imagery of the early
stan)as, the plaintie tone of the poet, and the carefully constructed poetic stan)a6the
two trimeter lines, which gie the poet an opportunity to utter short, heartfelt statements
before a long silence ensured by the short line 5Their hearts hae not grown old...9. The
speaker, caught up in the gentle pain of personal memory, contrasts sharply with the
swans, which are treated as symbols of the essential* their hearts hae not grown old! they
are still attended by passion and con#uest.
William $utler 1eats& poem, The Wild 'wans at (oole depicts an eening stroll by a
lake filled with swans. The speaker is familiar with the swans, as he has been coming to
the lake for 34 years. 2e is fascinated by them and reminisces on earlier trips he has
taken to the lake. Throughout the poem, 1eats deelops a tone of awe for the swans, as
well as melancholy for the past.
The speaker in the poem is clearly fascinated by the swans. 2e admires the beautiful
animals, referring to them as brilliant creatures 51eats 3-9. The speaker een seems to
be <ealous of the swans* Their hearts hae not grown old 51eats ==9. $y commenting
on the unwearied swans, the speaker is comparing the longeity and lieliness of the
swans to his own life, with which he seems disappointed 51eats ==9. The speaker admires
the swans and wishes that his life could be unchanged and simple, similar to the swans. 8n
the past, the swans een seemed to trod with a lighter tread, indicating that the
speaker&s life had been easier and his heart lighter 51eats 3>9. 2e knows that the swans
bring happiness to whoeer&s life they touch, and he wishes that they would always be in
his. The swans seem to be the sole source of beauty and <oy in the speaker&s life, and he
dreads the day that he awakes to find they hae flown away 51eats -?9.
The contrast of the speaker and the swans, along with references to the past, gies the
poem a melancholy tone. 2e reminisces on the preious years, remembering the first time
he had seen the swans in the water, the awe he felt when watching them take flight, and
the sound of their wings beating aboe him. The speaker describes his heart as sore,
claiming that all&s changed since he first saw the swans 51eats 3,-3.9. With the swans
symboli)ing happiness, he comments on the fleeting nature of <oy* $y what lake&s edge
or pool " 0elight men&s eyes when 8 awake some day " To find they hae flown away@
51eats =>--?9. 2e seems to dread the future and the disappointment he assumes that it
will bring. The reader can infer that the speaker is generally unhappy and wishing he
could relie the past.
8 think it is natural for all humans to reminisce and wish for the past. / faorite topic for
people eerywhere is the good old days, in which one compares characteristics from
earlier times to how easy or hard their life is today. 8 een find myself doing so
sometimes A wishing for the simple, carefree days of my childhood or missing my high
school friends. 8t is easy to get caught up in the past, because that is the only standard to
which we can compare the present. 2oweer, if we are still liing in the past and
dreading the future, we can forget to en<oy the treasures of the present.
In Yeats's poem, 'The Wild Swans at Coole,' we see a portrait of a placid lake where 59
wild swans are swimming peacefully Yeats not only takes us to this lake, !ut to an aching
place inside the heart where we regret that time passes too "uickly
To learn more about this topic you should also watch 1eatsB The 'econd (oming* / ;oem
of ;ostwar /pocalypse and Cobinson (rusoe* 'ummary and Themes
Yeats
William $utler 1eats is probably 8relandBs most famous poet. 2e receied the Dobel ;ri)e
for Eiterature in 34=-. Throughout his poems, we see his longing for the #uiet life that
nature can bring. 2e wrote BThe Wild 'wans at (oole,B and published it in 343F in a
whole book of poems under that same title. 1eats was inspired to write the poem after
seeing .4 wild swans at (oole ;ark, which was an estate owned by Eady /ugusta
:regory in 8reland.
The Form
The poem has fie stan)as, and the rhyme scheme is a#!#c#!#d#d in eery stan)a. There is
a mi+ture of iambic pentameter, iambic trimeter and iambic tetrameter in the poem. The
style of this poem is ery simple, and the language, accessible. 1eats was a master of
wrapping depth of ideas into simple terms.
Analysis and Theme
8n this section, we will take a look at each stan)a and interpret the literal meanings and
themes that emerge as we go.
Stanza One
BThe trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
%irrors a still sky!
Upon the brimming water among the stones
/re nine-and-fifty swans.B
8n this stan)a, we are introduced to the setting of the poem. The speaker in the poem is
obsering a lake in the autumn twilight. 8t is so still that it BmirrorsB the sky. There are
stones in the water, and upon the lake .4 wild swans are swimming.
Stanza Two
BThe nineteenth autumn has come upon me
'ince 8 first made my count!
8 saw, before 8 had well finished,
/ll suddenly mount
/nd scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.B
8n stan)a two, the speaker reali)es that it has been 34 years since he first isited (oole
;ark and saw the swans. The swans fly up into the air all at once and fly away, circling as
they go. 8t must hae been a breathtaking sight.
Stanza Three
B8 hae looked upon those brilliant creatures,
/nd now my heart is sore.
/llBs changed since 8, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings aboe my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.B
/fter obsering the swans, the poetBs heart aches with regret. 'o much has changed in
these nineteen years since he first obsered the swans so long ago. 2e muses that in those
days he Btrod with a lighter tread.B Eife did not weigh him down as it does now. 2e no
longer feels carefree, and maybe he has put on a pound or two in those 34 years. That is
certainly possibleG
Stanza Four
BUnwearied still, loer by loer,
They paddle in the cold
(ompanionable streams or climb the air!
Their hearts hae not grown old!
;assion or con#uest, wander where they will,
/ttend upon them still.B
The poet notes that the swans seem unchanged. 'wans usually mate for life, and can lie
from 3= to -? years. This is significant to the poem because the poet points out that these
same swans may be BunweariedB and many of them could possibly be the ery swans he
obsered 34 years preiously. They are still with their mates, Bcompanionable.B The phrase
Btheir hearts hae not grown oldB is especially telling. The poet sees people who hae old
hearts. Their loe is not the same as it was when they were young. They no longer hae a
spirit of BpassionB or Bcon#uest,B yet the swans are still young at heart.
Stanza Five
B$ut now they drift on the still water,
%ysterious, beautiful!
/mong what rushes will they build,
$y what lakeBs edge or pool
0elight menBs eyes when 8 awake some day
To find they hae flown away@B
8n this final stan)a, the swans hae returned to the lake and are BdriftingB along. There is a
peaceful beauty about them. The poet muses upon where the swans may someday go if
they leae, and he reali)es that they hae Bflown away.B The deeper meaning here is the
preciousness of the day at hand and that life is fragile. What we loe dearest today, we
need to appreciate because it may be gone in the future.
Lesson Summary
1eats brings his readers to the reali)ation that life in all of its wonder is fragile. ;eople
change, and we eentually lose what we hold most dear. This poem reminds us to en<oy
each moment we hae to lie because we do not know what tomorrow will bring.
1eatsB poem The Wild 'wans at (oole is set in (oole ;ark in (ounty :alway, 8reland,
where 1eats loed to spend time. 8t is autumn, and the trees look beautiful, but autumn of
course is a season of decay. The time of day is BtwilightB, so the light is fading and the day
is drawing to a close. There is an air of tran#uillity at first as the lake reflects Ba still skyB.
The first stan)a ends, howeer, with the announcement that there are fifty-nine swans on
the water. 1eats states this number as Bnine and fiftyB, and the fact that the nine comes first
emphasises that this is an odd number. One of the swans is alone, without a mate.
1eats opens the second stan)a by stating that it is nineteen years since he first counted the
swans at (oole, but we donBt know how old he was at the time. 2e can remember that
while he was counting he saw the swans take flight all at once and then split up,
Bwheeling in great broken ringsB. The noise of their wings must hae been almost
deafening! 1eats describes it as BclamourousB. 8t was an e+perience that obiously
remained with him, striking as it was.
1eats had great admiration for the swans, describing them in the opening line of the third
stan)a as Bbrilliant creaturesB. 8n the following line, howeer, he turns to his own feelings*
Bmy heart is soreB. 2e is remembering a sight he first saw when he was much younger, and
this makes him acutely aware that he is ageing. 2e refers again to the noise of the swansB
wings, this time using alliteration in the phrase Bbell-beatB. 1eats closes the third stan)a
with the statement that he BTrod with a lighter treadB when he first heard the sound,
implying that he was younger and more carefree or <oyful then.
1eats opens the fourth stan)a by describing the swans as BUnweariedB, contrasting the fact
that they do not tire with the reference to his own ageing. The swans are Bloer by loerB,
flying in pairs. 1eats uses alliteration to describe the moement of the swans, this time
with the hard BcB sound in Bcold " (ompanionable streams or climb the airB. BTheir hearts
hae not grown oldB forms another strong contrast with the line B/nd now my heart is
soreB of the preious stan)a. / softer alliteration features in the phrase Bwander where they
willB, coneying a sense of the swansB freedom. Their iacity and energy are alluded to
as 1eats says that they still seek Bpassion and con#uestB. The implication once again is that
the poet has aged and is no longer young enough for a new loe affair. 58n actual fact
1eats married after this poem was composed.9
The two opening lines of the final stan)a echo the mood and setting of the first stan)a,
describing the swans as B%ysterious, beautifulB on the calm water of the lake. 8n the last
four lines of The Wild 'wans at (oole, 1eats faces the fact that the swans will not be
there foreer. They will build nests in another place for the winter, and they will gie
pleasure to other people who will see them beside a BlakeBs edge or poolB. 1eats will
Bawake some dayB to find that they hae gone. The poem ends with this air of sadness,
which could be symbolic of the transitory nature of a loe affair.
The poem is set in fie stan)as of si+ lines each! the lines are of arying length, but long
and short tend to alternate. The rhyme scheme is /$($00, although BstonesB and BswansB
in the fifth and si+th lines of the first stan)a are really <ust a half rhyme. 1eats uses a
combination of end-stopped lines and en<ambment within each stan)a! the en<ambment
allows one line to flow into the ne+t and e+tend the image. 8n the second stan)a this
deice is used oer the last three lines where 1eats describes the powerful effect that the
sight and sound of the swans flying up had on him.
The Wild 'wans at (oole is an eocatie poem in which 1eats uses a setting and the
memory of an e+perience, now being re-lied, to e+press his awareness of the ageing
process. The season of autumn and the time of twilight symbolise this process, as nature
dies away and light fades. The beauty and power of the swans create a contrast that 1eats
e+periences through sight and sound. They hae not aged or lost their BpassionB for life
and loe. 1eats is aware, howeer, that youth slips away and his heart becomes heay,
knowing that ageing is ineitable and that change has to be confronted.
William $utler 1eats& The Wild 'wans at (oole appeared during a significant moment
in the poet&s life and stands therein as a crucial turning point in his relation to the poetic
task. 0aniel Tobin comments on the unhappiness of the poet during its 343H composition!
1eats faced a re<ection by 8seult :onne after years of e#ually fruitless courtship of her
mother, his beloed 8reland was in the midst of turmoil and rebellion, and, at the age of
fifty-one, 1eats saw his autumn years rapidly descending upon him 5Tobin, .F9. 1et,
although this melancholy looms throughout the poem, 1eats succeeds in establishing, by
the ery structure of the poem, a response to it, transcending his indiidual despair
through the creation of the poetic ob<ect itself. The first stan)a of the poem, in its
impersonal reflection on an idyllic natural scene, is reminiscent of 1eats& earlier poetry
and his #uest for the eternal and immutable. This is immediately contrasted with the
introduction of the poet&s oice in the second stan)a, which carries through to the fourth
stan)a, there offering a forceful <u+taposition of his own e+perience of fleeting time with
the permanence he seeks. 2ow can the poet seek beauty, an eternali)ed #uality, as the
world careens and changes around him@ Or perhaps better phrased* how can a mortal,
defined by temporality in his ery nature, make beauty eternal a part of himself@ The
answer appears in the final stan)a of the poem with an appeal to the transpersonal nature
of beauty, whereby an eternal beauty of the human condition is e+trapolated from the
ery icissitudes of the indiidual&s life. 2ow does this self-transcendence accomplish
itself@
The poem&s opening stan)a presents an impersonal and idyllic description of a landscape,
in which the particular cares and concerns of human life are markedly absent! indeed,
where does man first turn to escape his own mortality other than to the seemingly
indifferent ma<esty of nature@ The trees are in their autumn beauty, and this beauty is
intensely related to the notion that the water"%irrors a still sky 5ll 3, --,9. Dature stands
as a perfect mimetic relationship! the stillness of the heaens6their eternality6is echoed
in the water that appears to reflect its timelessness unproblematically. The stan)a
concludes with the introduction of nine and fifty swans, which seems to bear a
somewhat mythic significance, due not only to the specificity of the number, but also to
the archaic manner in which the number is e+pressed6one might instead e+pect a realist
poem to recall Ififty-nine& swans 5l H9. %oreoer, %artin ;uhel remarks that any reader
of the poem who has eer paid een fleeting attention to a flock of wild waterfowl can
hardly aoid reflecting that the counting of such a large number of wild swans would be
no mean feat for anybody, and this fact seres further to distance the poem from human
reality 5;uhel, =49. 8n seeking the origins of this rather arbitrary #uantity, ;uhel recalls
that fifty-nine is the number of bells said to be on the horse of the Jueen of Klfland in the
'cottish ballad Thomas Chymer! he therefore sees the poem as a static contrast
between the fairy immortality and immutability of the swans and the strictly linear
nature of the aging poet&s life 5;uhel, -?9.
8 beliee, howeer, that this categorical bifurcation6a bifurcation neertheless implied
by the poem6is oerly simplistic and fails to recogni)e that change is endemic to the
poem as a whole. Ken in the first stan)a, we witness the pall of mutability hanging oer
the bucolic scene! the water, at first mirroring a still sky, returns in fifth line with the
epithet brimming, indicating that nothing on earth can wholly reflect that celestial
stillness of eternali)ed beauty that the poet seeks. %oreoer, the beauty of the trees is
their autumn beauty glimpsed under the October twilight! 1eats has left behind the
carefree days of summer, illusorily endless, and now sees himself standing upon an
unmistakable temporal limen. 2e is in the autumn of his life, a time when man is forced
to reckon what fruits are to be harested from the seeds his life has sown! surely in iew
of the biographical conte+t that Tobin has painted for us of 1eats& 343H, this must hae
seemed to him a ery meager crop. 0oes this fact, then, undermine the possibility that
there might be any allusion to a static mystical realm@ 8n response to ;uhel&s assertion
cited aboe, Caymond 1ounis contends,
8nterpreters who attempt to trace such influences Lof faery legendsM in poems such
as IThe Wild 'wans at (oole,& which were written at a time when the poet was
deliberately aoiding such concerns in his poetry, may mislead the readerN
8ndeed, one suspects that the aging speaker admires them because they are
empirical presences like himself, and because they can neer be aware of
weariness, of transience or of decline, which the speaker feels #uite acutely at this
stage of his life 51ounis, =.9.
1ounis is correct to emphasi)e that the swans are themseles a part of these temporal
changes, but there is a balance to be struck neertheless! the number of the swans is ery
likely chosen as a reference to such fairy imagery, but this allusion is <u+taposed with the
fact of their location in the temporal world. This ultimately proes to be a more powerful
position than either of the two proposed, for through the window of the swans, the poet
sees the possibility of temporal beings transcending Itransience& and Idecline& in an
attainment of eternal beauty. This possibility, howeer, is intrinsically tied to 1eats&
introduction of the personal in the middle stan)as of the poem, and it is to this that we
must now turn our attention.
%an seeks an eternal sense of himself, that is, a relationship to eternal beauty that
oercomes the mutability of the human condition! yet this moement cannot be
accomplished as an escape from the temporal to the eternal, but only through a
transmutation of the specifically personal in a poetic conte+t. Tobin e+amines the nature
of this shift in 1eats& poetic strategy* %an was nothing, 1eats belieed, until he was
wedded to an imageN'till, it took him many years of arduous laborNto reali)e fully
personal utterance in his poetry 5Tobin, .F9. 2is earlier poetry was characteri)ed by a
focus on symbolism and the reali)ation of the eternal principles contained there, but the
symbolism of his LearlierM poems often seemed to oerwhelm the human emotion it was
intended to e+press 5Tobin, .F9. That is to say, 1eats so priileged the image to which he
wished to wed himself that the ery man who was to be thereby e+pressed was lost in a
mire of solipsistic generali)ation! preoccupied with the image itself, he was unable to
reconcile the timeless beauty of the swans to himself, the aging poet who admires them.
;oetry as personal utterance, on the contrary, was a turn away from solipsism, a gesture
toward the ideal condition of Iall men&s speech.& 2e came to understand that, though
ideali)ed in poetry, Iall men&s speech& had to be concrete and personal 5Tobin, .F9.
0espite the alue that the image might bear in redeeming man&s e+istence, in giing him
a solid identity whereby he can understand his relationship to the eternal, the image is
ultimately empty once it has been loosed from the moorings of personal conte+t. Without
inter<ecting himself6the aging poet6into the contemplation of the eternal glimpsed
through the swans, an infrangible gulf remains between his reality and his ideal.
8n reflecting on 1ounis& acknowledgement of the empirical reality of the swans
themseles, we see that the highly personal and local nature of the poet&s encounter with
these swans6who remain beautiful neertheless6offers the possibility of reconciliation.
Dorma 2ahn comments on the nature of this encounter, asserting that
1eats places himself here as representatie of man caught in the flu+ of time, and
of artist torn by the e+igencies of that eer-present theme of his poetry, the
opposing alues of being and becoming. 7rom the anguish of his e+perience, the
poet turns, not for escape but for confirmation of the worth of such suffering, to
the opening image of the poem. 2e sees that the swans still Ipaddle in the
cold"(ompanionable streams or climb the air&NThe swans6art images6retain
beautyN'uffering is a part of the e+perience of beauty 52ahn, ,=?9.
1eats& preious conceptions of the nature of beauty are here completely oerwhelmed!
beauty does not reside, then, in the eternal itself, but in the encounter of the temporal with
the eternal. Through reflection on the specific and painful e+perience of time and
mutability, the poet e+tracts eternal principles from it, thereby creating the image of the
beautiful. The beautiful image does not pree+ist the poet, but rather it is through his own
labor that the changing nature of the October twilight and the fleeting swans are raised up
to eternity in the creation of the poetic ob<ect. 2e does not merely admire eternity! he
creates it. Eet us turn to the poem itself to see how this new relationship is effected.
The second stan)a begins immediately to contradict the first stan)a&s sense of
immutability. We are told* The nineteenth /utumn has come upon me"'ince 8 first made
my count! not only do we hae the introduction of temporality, but also an e+plicitly
sub<ectie temporality* the autumn has come upon him, and it is the nineteenth since a
specific eent in his life 5ll F->9. Thus, the poem and the imagery it contains flow
ine+tricably from the conte+t of his personal e+perience. Deertheless, this progression of
time, characteri)ed by change, is not uni#ue to him as an indiidual in an otherwise
eternal landscape! change is seen here as endemic to life itself. $efore he can finish his
count, /ll suddenly mount"/nd scatter wheeling in great broken rings"Upon their
clamorous wings 5ll 3?-3=9. They mount before he can finish his count, that is, before he
can e+tract from them a static symbol or image! it is not nature herself that gies us
images of eternal beauty, but the poet who captures, through his own perception and
reflection, a specific moment drawn out of a sea of change. %oreoer, the swans mount
suddenly and scatter, refusing any attempt to apply deterministic logic to the flow of time
and implying its ultimately random nature! were the poet merely a scientist reading a
knowable future through the present, we would be forced to admit that the image was
contained from the beginning in the incontroertible flow of nature, leading rationally
from one state to the ne+t whether or not a poet were there to obsere its course. 8nstead,
we are left with a sense that naturally is inherently meaningless and unpredictable, and
that the task falls to the poet to e+tract an image from this scene, to snatch a moment and
gie it form in the poetic te+t. Their wings are inherently clamorous, but through the hand
of the poet they are brought together in a harmonious whole.
(hange becomes een more personal in the third stan)a. /lthough he returns year after
year to look upon the same scene of the swans, /ll&s changed since his first isit
nineteen years before, when he Trod with a lighter tread! at this point it becomes clear
that time is not only fleeting generally, but it is fleeting for him! he is the one who is
aging and who must make sense of the life he has led thus far! is there something timeless
in it, or has it thus far been merely a meaningless progression of eents, leading to the
ineitable sleep of winter@ /fter all, een the eternal images he has created in his poems
cannot oercome the mortally he must face as an indiidual. /lthough these #uestions are
not answered until the final stan)a, we begin to see beforehand certain implications of the
direction he is taking. 2e has looked upon those brilliant creatures,"/nd now his heart is
sore 5ll 3--3,9. The swans here are assuredly Icreatures,& not the source of anything new,
and yet they are brilliant, insofar as they reflect light from somewhere else, from
somewhere eternal. 8t is in his engagement with such other creatures, mortal and
ephemeral like himself, that he sees the reflected light of the eternal creator. 1et, his heart
remains sore, because he senses in it a diide between himself and the swans. Unlike him,
Their hearts hae not grown old!";assion or con#uest, wander where they will,"/ttend
upon them still 5ll ==-=,9. Ken in the midst of the changing seasons and the
unaoidable and random forward momentum of time, passion6the engagement of the
indiidual toward a goal6and con#uest6the attainment of that goal6still characteri)e
their e+istence. Without #uestion, the poet sees reflected brilliantly in them a model for
iaciously relating to the world that neertheless escapes him in his somber mood.
Wherein lies the difference between them@ 2e is alone6understandable in iew of his
recently failed marriage proposal to 8seult :onne6and his life is a far cry from an image
of permanence in iew of his ineitable mortality, whereas the swans paddle, Unwearied
still, loer by loer 5l 349. The timeless arises not from nature itself, nor from the
contemplatie sub<ect therein, but from the dynamic interactions between indiiduals in
which eternal truths can be grasped! loe does not reside in one location or another,
unflinching and immutable, but is rather a timeless concept that appears only in the
conte+t of highly contingent, time-bound interactions between indiiduals! the eternal
e+ists in no place or person, but arises always from in between.
1eats sees the source of the swans& courageous e+istence into a future of uncertainty and
change in the eternal that has been achieed between them. With whom can he establish
this eternal@ With whom can he build an eternal image, an enduring meaning, that will
continue after his own earthly so<ourn has run its course@ With the fellowship of
humankind. 2e concludes the poem with a #uestion, thus emphasi)ing the perpetual
uncertainty of the future, against which his eternali)ing image neertheless preails*
/mong what rushes will they build,"$y what lake&s edge or pool"0elight men&s eyes,
when 8 awake some day"To find they hae flown away@ 5ll =F--?9. 0aniel Tobin
comments on this sudden broadening of the poem to the greater human community*
Their eentual disappearance from the speaker&s sight allows him a glimpse of
happiness beyond his personal sorrow, een as that sorrow is intensifiedNThis
final leap draws personal utterance beyond the personal e+perience of the speaker
into the public realm. The personal becomes something transpersonal. The arrial
of the transpersonal through the personal characteri)es 1eats&s greatest poems, the
end to which personal utterance is gien 5Tobin, .49.
/lthough one day 1eats will die, one day his swans will hae flown away from him, yet
they will delight the eyes of other men, for their image, eternali)ed in these words he has
generated from his own contingent e+perience, will lie on long after him. 8n this way,
the enduring e+istence of 1eats& poem answers the ery #uestion its te+t seems unable to
resole! by creating this te+tual image of his e+perience in the dialogue he establishes
with the reader, he has, in language itself, found the eternal. 2e has written of the
particular loneliness and mutability he has e+perienced in his own life, we, ninety years
later, read into his poem these emotions such as we hae e+perienced them in our own
lies, and between us and him e+ists this poem, this timeless image of the ephemerality
of human e+istence that will abide long after the churning wheel of the ages has ground
us all to dust.
Themes
$ature
1eats shows the beauty of the autumn scene. 2e is in a woodland beside a lake at
twilight, on a dry October eening. The beautiful leaes of autumn decorate the trees.
7ifty-nine swans float peacefully on a lake. 'tones create a nice scene on the lake. 2e
knows the swans will fly away to other lakes in magnificent circular formations. They
make a splendid bell like sound wheneer they fly away together. The swans are close-
knit and full of energy and a loe of life. They look mysterious as they paddle calmly on
the still waters. 1eats has a picture of a beautiful setting of the swans building their nests
in rushes near water. /boe all else, they delight all who look on them
%ging
1eats is concerned with his aging. 2e feels he is losing the energy and loe of life that the
swans still possess. 2e feels the swans will leae him when he reaches old age. 2e is
highly aware that nineteen years hae passed in his life since he first obsered the swans
at (oole Eake. The swans as a species do not age6they are Iunwearied&. $y stating that
their hearts hae not grown old, he seems to mean that his heart has aged, year by year.
2e walks more heaily now than nineteen years before when he had a lighter footstep.
2is heart is sore and weary rather than full of passion. 2e has a sense of the coming
ending of his own life. The fact that things change is known as transience. /utumn
highlights the transience of the year! twilight highlights the transience or passing of day.
The poem shows a sharp awareness of human transience* Iall&s changed&.
Immortality
The swans represent permanence or immortality. Their passion, energy, desire for success
and beauty will last. They as a species will outlast the poet. Their hearts remain young.
The passing of time does not cause the swans to fade.
'tyle
Repetition There are three references to water in the poem* Iwater&, Istreams& and
Ilakes edge or pool&.
Imagery The poem contains beautiful images of nature as detailed in the
summary aboe and the paragraph on the theme of nature aboe. 8t also contains
images of the poets aging self* I/nd now my heart is sore, all&s changed&.
Metaphor The lake is so flat and reflects the sky so well that 1eats call it a
mirror. 2e compares the flapping of the swans& wings to the beating of a bell.
ersoni!i"ation 1eats gies human #ualities to the swans* I;assion or con#uest&.
Language The language is descriptie and simple. %any of the words are short
eeryday words of one syllable.
Metonymy 1eats refers to his heart but he means his emotional and spiritual self.
Contrast 8n this poem, 1eats compares the present and the past. 2e contrasts the
unwearied swans as a species with his own fading self. /s a species the swans
will lie on after he dies. Their beauty will remain. 2e by contrast, is aging and
fading.
Tone The tone has the following combination of tones* calm or serene LIThe trees
are in their autumn beauty&M, sad or melancholic Limages of autumn and twilight,
Iand now my heart is sore&M, troubled LIclamorous&M, enious LI0elight men&s
eyes&M, admiration LImysterious, beautiful&M, regretful LIto find they hae flown
away&M.
Atmosphere The atmosphere is poignant Lsweetly sadM and mysterious. %any
descriptions gie an image of autumn&s beauty. The scene is tran#uil as the waters
are Istill& like a mirror.
arado# Lapparent contradictionM The swans are unchanging while nature itself
goes through cycles of change, as autumn illustrates.
Alliteration The Ic& in Icold companionable& is musical and emphasises the
meaning. The three Iw&s in Iwander where they will& are musical and show the
fluid moement of the swans.
Assonan"e Dote the music created by the si+ repeating Ii& sounds in Idrift on the
still waters, mysterious, beautiful&.
Consonan"e IE& is used a lot throughout the poem and helps to create the musical
effect. 7or e+ample Il& occurs eight times in the last stan)a.
Rhyme The second and fourth lines rhyme in each stan)a. The fifth and si+th
lines of each stan)a form a rhyming couplet. This pattern contributes to the
harmonious musical effect of the poem. There are internal rhymes such as Iloer
by loer&. The repetition of the word Istill& in the first line of the final stan)a
echoes the rhyming couplet of the preious stan)a.
Rhythm The poem has alternate four beat and three beat lines*
IUnderNthe OctoberNtwilightNthe water
%irrorsNa stillNsky&
Form The poem is a regular lyric in si+ stan)as of si+ lines each.