W.B. Yeats' "The Song of Wandering Aengus"
The Daily Poem
Goldberry Studios
4.6 • 729 Ratings
🗓️ 19 May 2021
⏱️ 7 minutes
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Summary
William Butler Yeats[a] (13 June 1865 – 28 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, prose writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. A pillar of the Irish literary establishment, he helped to found the Abbey Theatre, and in his later years served two terms as a Senator of the Irish Free State. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival along with Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn and others.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the Daily Poem. I'm David Kern, and today is Tuesday, May 18, 2021. |
| 0:06.4 | Today's poem is by an Irish poet, one of the great Irish poets, William Butler Yates, W.B. Yates, |
| 0:11.9 | is also what he goes by. He lived from June of 1865 until January of 1939, and is certainly one of the most important literary figures of the 20th century |
| 0:24.0 | from Ireland or anywhere else. And the poem that I'm going to read today is called The Song of Wandering |
| 0:30.0 | Angus. I'll read it once, share a few comments, and then read it again. This is how it goes. |
| 0:38.7 | I went out to the hazel wood because a fire was in my head, |
| 0:43.0 | and cut and peeled a hazel wand and hooked a berry to a thread. |
| 0:47.2 | And when white moths were on the wing, |
| 0:49.5 | and moth-like stars were flickering out, |
| 0:52.3 | I dropped the berry in a stream and caught a little silver trout. |
| 0:57.9 | When I had laid it on the floor, I went to blow the fire a flame, but something rustled |
| 1:04.2 | on the floor and someone called me by my name. |
| 1:07.8 | It had become a glimmering girl with apple blossom in her hair who called me by my name and ran and faded through the brightening air. |
| 1:18.7 | Though I am old with wandering through hollow lands and hilly lands, I will find out where she is gone, and kiss her lips and take her hands, and walk among long dappled grass, and pluck till time, and times are done, the silver apples of the moon, the golden apples of the sun. |
| 1:41.9 | This poem was written when Yates was in his 30s. |
| 1:46.8 | They think sometime around the late 1890s. |
| 1:48.9 | And it was originally printed in 1897 with the title A Mad Song, which kind of fascinating. |
| 1:57.2 | The title that it is currently published under the Song of Wandering Angus is what it was published in The Wind Among the Reeds, which was Yates collection from 1899. |
| 2:07.8 | So this is an earlier collection of his work. |
| 2:10.8 | I was looking up a little bit of information on this poem, such as what I just shared with you, and came across a blog post, I guess, |
| 2:19.8 | from 2015 on the National Endowments for the Humanities website, NEH.gov. And they have, as part of their |
| 2:28.9 | Ed Sightment website, they have close readings of various poetry and literature. And they have one of this |
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