The Wild Swans at Coole

Yeats poem is a poignant reflection on his personal feelings of longing, and

yearning for love. These emotions are experienced vicariously by Yeats through
a group of swans which he observes. As a result of the powerful and visceral
emotions Yeats explores, the poem is very powerful amongst others in the lyrical
genre.
A sense of Yeats yearning is established as soon as we are introduced to the
swans: there are specifically nine-and-fifty swans. This very precise odd number
draws attention to the fact that there are not a full sixty swans, especially as the
nine is written first. One swan has no partner. This poignant image is
responsible for introducing the theme of loneliness in the poem and we hence
develop an understanding of the poets damaged heart. The appearance of the
narrator in the poem occurs directly after the latter line and it alludes to his
vulnerable state with the words the nineteenth autumn has come upon me, this
loaded line: links the swans to his life with the repetition of the number nine;
emphasizes the things coming to an end with the temporal marker autumn;
makes him seem vulnerable and damaged as he is subjected to the weight of the
season. The saddening oxymoron of autumn beauty is poignant as we are
reminded of the fleeting end to things, yet the unwavering beauty in them all the
same. Perhaps Yeats sees himself in this predicament. He attempts to count the
swans but they all scatter in great broken rings before he finishes. The word
ring is particularly apt as it spells out the idea of unity and togetherness, and it
has connotations with wedding rings a symbolic representation of love. The fact
the birds fly away before he finishes counting is suggestive of his floundering
attempts to connect intimately with people, and how he finds things function on
a level out of his control. The idea of companionship reigns in the third stanza,
and the fact that the swans are paired lover by lover is a reminder of the lone
swan. In the stanza, the enjambment of the words cold and companionable
are a very clever ploy by Yeats. The second line ends with the word cold and we
as the reader of left anxious and vulnerable in the raw thermal conditions; we are
then rescued by the warming release of the word companionable, it as if the
answer to the cold is companionship. We feel for the Yeats as he has no
companion in these raw conditions. The poem ends on a tone of uncertainty and
nervousness as Yeats fears these wild swans will fly away. The reason why he is
scared of this is that he uses the swans to vicariously experience the visceral
emotions of love, as a result of an inability to experience these emotions with
other people. He finds safety in these swans, and is fearful in the unknown
wilderness of life outside the lake and is reluctant to be left to his own devices.
The rhetorical question flown away is Yeats soliloquizing the dread of what he
will do if they leave, and is also a reminder of the differences between the
human and animal world. Yeats cannot fly on these warily dry paths he is
walking.
Contrast is a theme which flows throughout Yeats poem. Contrast in movement
against stasis and contrast in ideas. At first Yeats describes the lake as a mirror,
an image which suggests that what he sees in the lake as a reflection of what is

happening to him in real life. The contradiction occurs when he describes the
water as brimming the adjective creates a sense of movement which
undermines the use of the word mirror. The repetition of the word still, which is
used twice, makes the landscape seem relaxed and serene. However, there are
sudden outbursts of energy when the swans scatter and mount. This has such
an effect to emphasize the momentary nature of everything. How something can
go from one extreme to another, an idea which as previously addressed, is like
the autumn beauty.