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Yeats, W B - Collected poems - The solitary soul and the swan
Identifier
011838
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
W B Yeats – Collected Poems
Some moralist or mythologist poet
Compares the solitary soul to a swan
I am satisfied with that,
Satisfied if a troubled mirror show it
Before that brief gleam of its life be gone
An image of its state
The wings half spread for flight
The breast thrust out in pride
Whether to play, or to ride
Those winds that clamour of approaching light
…………..
The swan has leaped into the desolate heaven
That image can bring wilderness, bring a rage
To end all things, to end
What my laborious life imagined, even
The half imagined, the half written page;
O but we dreamed to mend
Whatever mischief seemed
To afflict mankind, but now
That winds of winter blow
Learn that we were crack pated when we dreamed