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 in 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 some day
To find they have flown away?
Coole Park, in County Galway, was the home of Lady Augusta Gregory, a playwright and nationalist whom Yeats met in 1898. They grew to be close and Yeats spent his summers with her at Coole Park, a peaceful and beautiful place, popular with other writers.
In The Wild Swans at Coole the poet-narrator has come to the end of another summer there. It is now autumn and he reflects on how quickly time passes, and how helpless we are to alter time’s path. The swans – unlike him – appear unchanging. The passing of time and the change he sees in himself upsets him.
Form
The poem is written in a regular stanza form. it is a modified ballad format which gives the image of perfection that the swans complete.
Structure
The poem is a mixture of short and long lines which add to the sense of tranquility and slow shifting peace. The tempo is slow and formal which matches the appearance of the swan.
Attitudes and Ideas
Yeats wrote this poem at the age of fifty-one. He realises that so much has changed since he first came and saw the swans at Coole Park, both in his life and in the wider world. It is the ‘nineteenth autumn’ that he has been there, a thought which upsets him: ‘and now my heart is sore’
Themes
Time: whatever the circumstances humanity cannot conquer time. Yeats knows this and is saddened at this idea.
Change: just as the passing of time is inevitable, so is change, and not necessarily for the better. Yeats describes the swans as unchanging to contrast the change within himself.
Relationships: there is a sense that one type of change that Yeats has seen is in his relationship with other such as that with Maude Gonne. Again, the swans contrast with this idea as they remain with their chosen partners for life. 
danielakeogh 
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