{"collection":"Northern European Mythology","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/neu/yeats/lpy/lpy112.htm","path":"neu/yeats/lpy/lpy112.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/neu/yeats/lpy/lpy112.htm","text":"THE trees are in their autumn beauty,\n The woodland paths are dry,\n Under the October twilight the water\n Mirrors a still sky;\n Upon the brimming water among the stones\n Are nine and fifty swans.\nThe nineteenth Autumn has come upon me\n Since I first made my count;\n I saw, before I had well finished,\n All suddenly mount\n And scatter wheeling in great broken rings\n Upon their clamorous wings.\nI have looked upon those brilliant creatures,\n And now my heart is sore.\n All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,\n The first time on this shore,\n The bell-beat of their wings above my head,\n Trod with a lighter tread.\nUnwearied still, lover by lover,\n They paddle in the cold,\n Companionable streams or climb the air; p. 238\n Their hearts have not grown old;\n Passion or conquest, wander where they will,\n Attend upon them still.\nBut now they drift on the still water\n Mysterious, beautiful;\n Among what rushes will they build,\n By what lake's edge or pool\n Delight men's eyes when I awake some day\n To find they have flown away?","title":"Later Poems of Yeats: The Wild Swans at Coole (1919): The Wild Swans at Coole","type":"page"}