General Introduction
Wild Swans at Coole is another one among the famous poems composed by the Irish William Butler Yeats. The poem is said to have been written between 1916 to early 1917. At that time, Yeats was living with Lady Gregory near Coole Park. And it is said that the poem was dedicated to her son, Major Robert Gregory who was a British airman who was killed in a friendly fire incident in World War First. A literary scholar asserts that the poem is Yeats' struggle to find immortal beauty in this temporal world. The poem features fifty-nine swans swimming at the midnight.
Development of Situation
The poem opens on the declaration that the season of Autumn has arrived. The speaker eyes fifty-nine swans in the twilight of October. The poet has witnessed a great change in his human world but the swans are the same.
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.
The swans are continuing their march even in this cold weather. The poet is bewitched by their flight but he is wondering when he will get up from his sleep, where will these swans head towards?
Themes
The first prominent theme of this poem is time and ageing. The poet visits Ireland after nineteen years and still finds the seams marching in the same passion as they used to do when he saw them for the first time, before 19 years. The only thing that has changed in between the visits is the ageing of the speaker. The addressor has grown much older and the status of his life has been changed since his first visit.
The second theme of this poem is the difference between Nature and humans. The concept of change works differently between the said contributors of the environment. Even in a short period of nineteen years, the suffering of humanity had been increased due to World War First. But Nature remained unaffected by the humanistic catastrophe which shook continents after continents. Swans do not care whether it's World War First or the Second, as long as they are speared, they only know to drift across the oceans and return back.
Figurative Analysis
The poem contains a number of literary devices geared towards the elevation of its scope of interpretation. The poet has personified swans by attributing the humanistic quality of paddling to them. But the swans are also implied as metaphors of Nature, love, and imagination.
The poet has also utilized hyperbole (exaggeration) to exaggerate the beauty of the flight of swans through using "scatter wheeling in great broken rings." The poem contains an allusion (reference) to death in the form of "dry paths".
Setting and Imagery
The setting of this poem is quite obvious from the title of this poem and that is the Coole Park in the month of October. The images used in this poem make the readers visualize the gorgeous flight of swans. The striking images of this poem may include like, "But now they drift on the still water", "the brimming water among the stones", "climb the air", "their clamorous wings", and "hearing at twilight".
Structural Analysis
The poem contains thirty lines. It is divided into five stanzas of six lives each. Thus making five sestets (a sestet is a stanza of 6 lines). The rhyme scheme of this poem is ABCBDD. The rhythmic pattern of this poem is iambic tetrameter in lines 1 and 3; iambic trimeter in lines 2, 4 and 6, and iambic pentameter in line 5, repeated in each stanza.
Conclusion
Wild Swans at Coole is a beautiful poem depicting the bewitching flight of swans and the unchanging routes of Nature.
