Read "The Wild Swans at Coole" by W.B. Yeats online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
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?