The Wild Swans at CooleThe Wild Swans at Coole by William Butler Yeats, first published in 1919, is a rare manuscript, the original residing in one of the great libraries of the world. This book is a reproduction of that original, which has been scanned and cleaned by state-of-the-art publishing tools for better readability and enhanced appreciation. Restoration Editors' mission is to bring long out of print manuscripts back to life. Some smudges, annotations or unclear text may still exist, due to permanent damage to the original work. We believe the literary significance of the text justifies offering this reproduction, allowing a new generation to appreciate it. |
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Common terms and phrases
AHERNE Sing Alcibiades astrologer beauty beauty's bird bitter bone breath brought burning centaur climb cradle cuckoo dance dawn day long dead dear death delight DOLLS door dream END OF DAY face found The horn's Galway girl GOATHERD golden king gone grass great-grandfather's battered tomb grey Connemara cloth hare head heart grows old horn's sweet note Hunchback and saint John Aherne kissed knew a phoenix lady laid the sailor laughed learned live loaded pern look lovers MACMILLAN mastered a sweet Michael Robartes mind mind's eye Minnaloushe creeps moon mountain narrow pound night O'ROUGHLEY ories passion play Pollexfen pranced REC'D LD MAR rhyme rock of Cashel round SANG Solomon SHEPHERD Shudder Solomon to Sheba song speech stone stood stream SWANS AT COOLE talk There's things thought tower trees Twenty-and-eight University of California Vague memories walk WILD SWANS wind woman young youth so let
Popular passages
Page 13 - Those that I fight I do not hate, Those that I guard I do not love; My country is Kiltartan Cross, My countrymen Kiltartan's poor, No likely end could bring them loss Or leave them happier than before. Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public men, nor cheering crowds, A lonely impulse of delight...
Page 1 - 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...
Page 45 - The living men that I hate, The dead man that I loved, The craven man in his seat, The insolent unreproved, And no knave brought to book Who has won a drunken cheer, The witty man and his joke Aimed at the commonest ear, The clever man who cries The catch-cries of the clown, The beating down of the wise And great Art beaten down.
Page 80 - By the help of an image I call to my own opposite, summon all That I have handled least, least looked upon.
Page 5 - Always we'd have the new friend meet the old And we are hurt if either friend seem cold, And there is salt to lengthen out the smart In the affections of our heart, And quarrels are blown up upon that head; But not a friend that I would bring This night can set us quarrelling, For all that come into my mind are dead.
Page 47 - MEMORY ONE had a lovely face, And two or three had charm, But charm and face were in vain Because the mountain grass Cannot but keep the form Where the mountain hare has lain.
Page 8 - For all things the delighted eye now sees Were loved by him: the old storm-broken trees That cast their shadows upon road and bridge; The tower set on the stream's edge; The ford where drinking cattle make a stir Nightly, and startled by that sound The water-hen must change her ground; He might have been your heartiest welcomer.
Page 9 - When with the Galway foxhounds he would ride From Castle Taylor to the Roxborough side Or Esserkelly plain, few kept his pace; At Mooneen he had leaped a place So perilous that half the astonished meet Had shut their eyes; and where was it He rode a race without a bit? And yet his mind outran the horses
Page 12 - I had thought, seeing how bitter is that wind That shakes the shutter, to have brought to mind All those that manhood tried, or childhood loved Or boyish intellect approved, With some appropriate commentary on each; Until imagination brought A fitter welcome; but a thought Of that late death took all my heart for speech.
Page 41 - MAY God be praised for woman That gives up all her mind, A man may find in no man A friendship of her kind That covers all he has brought As with her flesh and bone, Nor quarrels with a thought Because it is not her own.