Yeats at Coole

W. B. Yeats (1865-1939) was an Irish poet, playwright and mystic. He led the Irish Literary Revival, helped found the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, and won the Nobel Prize in 1923.

'The Wild Swans at Coole' opens in autumn. On a dry October evening, the trees are in their autumn beauty, and the woodland paths are dry. The still water of the lake at Coole mirrors a still sky.

On the brimming water, among the stones, float nine-and-fifty swans.

It is the nineteenth autumn since the poet first counted them. That first time, before he had finished counting, they all suddenly rose into the air and scattered, wheeling in great broken rings on their clamorous wings.

The quiet, fading season reflects the poet's own later life: he is growing old.