What does The Wild Swans at Coole mean? In this poem, ‘The Wild Swans at Coole,' Yeats explores the theme of
the frailty of human life
through his speaker. This particular speaker becomes keenly aware of his own aging as he watches the same swans that he has watched year after year.
Why did Yeats write The Wild Swans at Coole?
It was written during a period when Yeats was staying with his friend Lady Gregory at her home at Coole Park, and the assembled collection was
dedicated to her son, Major Robert Gregory
(1881–1918), a British airman killed during a friendly fire incident in the First World War.
What does the speaker imagine towards the end of the poem in The Wild Swans at Coole?
Upon the water float “nine-and-fifty swans.” The speaker says that
nineteen years have 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 …
What is a still sky?
The phrase “mirrors a still sky” can mean two different things. On the one hand, it could mean
the water reflects the sky, like a mirror
(on really clear nights, when the moon is shining, you can see the sky reflected off a lake).
How many swans did Yeats see in The Wild Swans at Coole?
Are
nine-and-fifty
swans. Upon their clamorous wings.
Though the speaker admires the swans, the whole poem is suffused with an atmosphere of
melancholy and regret
—with the speaker projecting the kind of traits onto the swans that he feels he now lacks.
W. B. Yeats has used different types of symbols in his poetry. They were carefully woven into the pattern of the poem. He uses these symbols
to convey his inner sensations, his visions and his mystic experiences
. In his early poems his symbols are elementary.
Well, in short, he's learned appreciation. Fundamentally, he appreciates what these swans represent for him:
youth, beauty, energy, love
—passion, baby! Now, think about that for a minute.
Poet feels sad to see them while his body refuses to feel lively again as it once used to, on the other hand,
swans have not aged or are not under pressure of life
, and on the contrary, they look more happy and youthful as ever.
Maud Gonne, meanwhile, converted to Catholicism (much to Yeats' dismay) and
in 1903 married the Irish soldier and Republican, John MacBride
.
What assumption about the woman's life does the speaker make in “When You Are Old”?
She has never known his love and so should be sad.
Swans do form monogamous pair bonds that can last for many years and even for life
.
Swans are gracefully long-necked, heavy-bodied, big-footed birds that glide majestically when swimming and fly with slow wingbeats and with necks outstretched.
They migrate in diagonal formation or V-formation at great heights
, and no other waterfowl moves as fast on the water or in the air.
The poem's title, The Second Coming,
alludes to the promised return of Jesus
, but its imagery evokes the Biblical prophecy of the Antichrist's birth.
