The Wild Swans at Coole Park

Do any of Yeats’ poems connect with your own personal experience? Select one of Yeats’ poems (or a section thereof) and discuss how the poem connects with your own understanding of the world in which we live.

Yeats’ poem “The Wild Swans at Coole”, for me is one of his most significant pieces as it resonates with my personal understanding of the world in which we live. The poem follows the narrators two contrasting visits to Coole park to watch the swans swim in the pond. On his second trip, the narrator clings to the beauty of the swans in a changing, war-struck world.

In the first stanza of the poem, the narrator highlights the beauty of the natural scene in front of him during his first visit to Coole park. Utilising imagery he states: “Upon the brimming water among the stones are nine-and-fifty swans” (Yeats lines 5-6).  Here Yeats illuminates the beauty that can be found in the world, in particularly through the swans. Yeats further elaborates upon this natural beauty through the use of a metaphor in: “The bell-beat of their wings above my head” (line 17). Here Yeats compares the flapping of the swans’ wings to the sound of a bell, illuminating the rhythmic beauty of the swans. However, the tone of the poem changes as upon Yeats’ second trip to the pond as he exclaims: I have looked upon those brilliant creatures, And now my heart is sore” (line 13-14). Due to the context of the time, his heart is ‘sore’ but the swans remain “mysterious [and] beautiful”, while also still subject to change as is Yeats himself (line 26). Thus, the poem is a testament, cementing the ideal that the world is ever changing and even beauty that can be found is not permanent, suggesting Yeats’s pessimistic attitude due to his surroundings.

This connects with my own understanding of the world as I am constantly bombarded with images of beauty that is overridden by technological advancements. For example, I once had an amazing view of the waterfront from my apartment but overtime this view has been compromised due to a building being constructed right in front of the view. Therefore, demonstrating to me the way in which beauty is not mortal and changes overtime.

Perhaps this is something that we need to start re-evaluating.

Text referenced: The Wild Swans at Coole Park, W.B Yeats