- I went out to the hazel wood,
- Because a fire was in my head,
- And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
- And hooked a berry to a thread;
- And when white moths were on the wing,
- And moth-like stars were flickering out,
- I dropped the berry in a stream
- And caught a little silver trout.
- When I had laid it on the floor
- I went to blow the fire a-flame,
- But something rustled on the floor,
- And some one called me by my name:
- 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.
- Though I am old with wandering
- Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
- I will find out where she has 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.
- W.B. Yeats
Thursday, 26 January 2012
The Song of Wandering Aengus
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Wonderful isn't it? What I love most about this and Yeats is that conversational flow and rhetorical innocence. Almost as if he's writing as he's thinking, not afraid to repeat words and phrases. He somehow manages to be both vulnerable and convincing at the same time.
ReplyDeleteYeats at his best seems to draw from some well of pure poetry. This poem has the tinkle of a song lyric and the complexity of quantum physics, the tone set in those two opening lines, the first so clear, the second so astounding. And I love its thingness - it is like an object, complete unto itself.
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