Explore "The White Birds" by W.B. Yeats on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea!
We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fade and flee; / And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the sky, / Has awaked in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that may not die.
A weariness comes from those dreamers, dew dabbled, the lily and rose; / Ah, dream not of them, my beloved, the flame of the meteor that goes, / Or the flame of the blue star that lingers hung low in the fall of the dew: / For I would we were changed to white birds on the wandering foam: I and you!
I am haunted by numberless islands, and many a Danaan shore, / Where Time would surely forget us, and Sorrow come near us no more; / Soon far from the rose and the lily, and fret of the flames would we be, / Were we only white birds, my beloved, buoyed out on the foam of the sea!