Welcome back to the Daily Poem here in the Close Reeds Podcast Network. I'm David Kern.

Today's poem is by William Butler Yates. As I mentioned yesterday, Yates died 80 years ago yesterday,

so I was going to read a poem yesterday and today commemorating his life and his work. He lived from 1865 to

1939 and as I mentioned yesterday was an Irish poet and certainly one of the most important figures

of 20th century literature. Today's poem is called the Wild Swans at Cool. It is a lyric poem that was written between 1916 and

1917 and then was first published in the summer of 1917 in a journal

called The Little Review. It ended up being the title poem in a 1919 collection

called the Wild Swans at Cool. This is how it goes. 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 since

I, hearing at twilight, the first time on this shore the bell beat of their wings above my head,

trod with a lighter tread. Unwearied still, lover by lover, they paddle on the cold, companionable streams, or climb

the air.

Their hearts have not grown old.

Passion or conquest, wander where they will, attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water, mysterious, beautiful.

Among what rushes will they build? By what lake's edge or pool

delight men's eyes when I awake someday to find they have flown away. The form of this poem

is actually one that I'm particularly interested in. It's got five stanzas. Each of them are basically iambic.

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