Yeats - backgound for some poems
"Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn . . ."
The concept of history behind "The Second Coming"
Leda and the Swan
(Yeats based his poem on this particular sculpture.)
". . . look at the 'Leda' as she stands to receive the great swan with the beating wings, letting the beak seize her neck, the foot tighten on her thigh — the trembling woman subjected to the fatal force which reveals to her the whole of life, even while penetrating her with voluptuousness and pain."
Are swans really that big?
The Gyre of the Dove
