A SUDDEN blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs,
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?
A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?
Notes
The original print of this piece (Dial, June 1924) had these lines
lines 1 - 4
A rush, a sudden wheel, and hovering still
The bird descends, and her frail thighs are pressed.
By the webbed toes, and that all-powerful bill
Has laid her helpless face upon his breast.
lines 6 - 8
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs!
(the question mark was later replaced with an exclamation mark, The Tower 1928) All the stretched body's laid on the white rush
And feels the strange heart beating where it lies;
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Comments
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I adore Yeats...such vivid, intense imagery...such a masterful hand...& Heart...I have a collection of his works...I am always enthralled by his writing...also, my initials are W.B. & my nickname is swan...LOL...kinda partial to him for this alone...but then, there's his poetry...sigh...Thank you for featuring this piece... 
Wanda
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I read this not to long ago for the first time. Excellent feature...such fearless writing. -
The terrifying swan is a mythical creature: Zues, the king of the Olympian gods has assumed the shape of an animal/ The offspring of his union with Leda will be Helen, whose abduction by the Trojan Prince, Paris, will launch the thousand ships of the Greek war against Troy.
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