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  • The Song of Wandering Aengus
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The Song of Wandering Aengus

William Butler Yeats

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.


William Butler Yeats

The Wind Among the Reeds (1899); /
The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats (Macmillan, 1967)

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ageing fishing fruit Irish poetry mental health searching transience unrequited love walking
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William Butler Yeats1865 - 1939

W.B. Yeats is one of the key literary figures of the late 19th-20th century, an Anglo-Irishman who headed the Irish literary revival, served in Ireland's Senate, won the Nobel Prize for Literature (1923), and produced some of the greatest...
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