[1] The Song of Wandering Aengus
| The Song of Wandering Aengus |
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 aflame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one 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
|
From: Amit Chakrabarti <amitc@>
Testing comment submission :)
[more testing: Poet #yeats, Poem #42, Poet#Tennyson]
Well, Yeats' peoms resonate with my feelings in a way that few others'
poems do. This one is no exception -- is it my imagination or does the
very sound of the poem suddenly change from exuberant to weary in the
last stanza?
Sheer genius.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Amit Chakrabarti:
E-mail: amitc@
URL: http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~amitc
From: Abraham Thomas <thomas@>
I agree that there's a marked shift in feeling in the last stanza, but
the tone is not quite 'weary'... 'poignant' is how I would put it.
Lots of undertones, though. Most especially, a sense of loss - all those
years gone by, spent on a fruitless quest... what makes it all the more
touching is Aengus' determination not to give up on his search, his
conviction that all will be well if he can but find his glimmering girl.
A heartbreakingly beautiful poem.
From: cvogel <cvogel@>
I find that there can be mixtures of dreams with mythological belief in
all thoughts of what love is. A seeking of an "ideal" ...possibly having
answers being found with in a belief system. There are at times a
thought put into the brain as to what/who we should seek. Old myths talk
of fairies coming to live in the human world though rituals and ernest
seeking. Sometimes that human can spend an entire life searching. How
memories/belief sytems become an avenue of search.....Desire becomes an
attainable dream if we choose to wholeheartedly search.
Still a poetic dream......
Circe
From: Daniel Marsh <danm@>
I seem to recall hearing this poem not once but twice on "Writer's
Almanac," a daily 5-minute segment on Public Radio, where they speak of
birthdays, aniverseries, and such for the day, and give one poem. There's
nothing quite like hearing Garrison Keeler read the poem, in that marvelous
voice he has. It does something to re-affirm poetry as an auditory, as
well as a strictly cereberal, artform.
But anyway, it is a very good poem, evocative of the old folk tales of
faeries disguised as animals (one about a seal comes to mind) and men who
persue them for their wives. I agree with the shift in tone, though there
is something very positive about the way he speaks of finding her, and so
though you feel that the odds are stacked against him, he will eventually
find his "glimmering girl."
I do love the last line, too. It definitely ranks up there in one of the
loveliest lines in poetry.
From: Jacquelin Gribble <jgribble@>
Yet another quest story. Ah but the quest's the thing! Really the
quest is all any of us have.
Jackie
From: William Sickels <wsickels@>
Some observations on "Song of the Wandering Aengus"
This haunting, mystic poem by W. B, Yeats was popularized in the early
'70s by folksinger Judy Collins in her sung version, titled "Golden
Apples of the Sun," which is how I first learned of it. Her version
differs, by choice or laxity, in three significant places, all of which
are, in my view, lesser renderings of Yeats' images.
He wrote that the silver trout had become "a glimmering girl",
"glistening" in her version.
The girl "faded through the brightening air." She "vanished in ..." for
Ms. Collins.
In the poet's intended search for this wondrous girl, he would find out
where she has gone and "kiss her lips and take her hands" while Ms.
Collins would merely "see her lips and take her hand." The version she
sings may have been phrased here to avoid lesbian connotations for a
female singer, but it does seem weakened and a little strange.
In the first instance the figure may be glistening from its formar
contact with the water but for it to glimmer is clearly indicative of a
strange and changeable state and a better wording. Similarly, for the
girl to "vanish" in the brightening air one may imagine an image merely
disappearing in brighter air, but the phrase "faded through" comes
closer to attempting to explain the magical process. Also the vanishing
is apt to be a guicker action, while fading is prolonged and leads into
the subsequent yearning, clearly a choice in keeping with the poem's
theme.
The line chosen for the song title is the same as that of a 1953 book of
Ray Bradbury stories; he may also have enjoyed the poem. The theme of
golden apples harks back to Greek mythology but I could find no linkup
there with the sun, implying for me that it was Yeats' connection,
powerful and apparently thus well-remembered. Deservedly so, one of my
favorite poems.
WHS
From: vico@
The poem has a complete quality and it is a beautiful thing to recite, to read to think about even to look at.
Its appeal does not diminish, it grows and like every beautiful thing it is not possible to tire of it.
The fire in the love-God's head is the drive that makes all life worthwhile. In its simplist form this fire
determines the outcome of our lives. The importance of the quest is the issue, no matter what the outcome may
be. The Hazel Wood, the wand, the stripping, the threading, the hooking, the dropping and the catching are all
life's work and all so beautifully reduced to a single simple ancient act.
The quest, which remains unresolved at the poem's end, survives and is almost fulfilled by the determination
alone. This is a love-God's song. I suspect he sang it throughout his love-God's life and if love-Gods live
as long as I think they do, then he is still singing it. So there is this eternal hope - a believer's hope and
the poet is young at the point of writing and youth is eternal.
The Silver and Golden Apples could be anything. I don't know the Greek connection. I don't want to know.
They are a perfect fit, day or night, for any of life's important fruits.
Vico.
From: "Alexander O. Smith" <alex@>
In "Early Irish Myths and Sagas" (Penguin Classics) Jeffrey Gantz mentions
that the story "The Dream of Oengus" (reproduced in full in this book) is
the "ultimate source of Yeats's poem 'The Dream of Wandering Aengus'." It is
a very short story with only a few recognizable themes that seem to bear
direct connection to Yeats's poem, however. In the story, the girl
approaches Oengus as he lay sleeping, and she vanishes as soon as he
welcomes her. She continues to visit him in this fashion over the course of
a year, and he falls in love with her, eventually embarking on a search to
find her. She is described as wearing a silver necklace and a chain of
burnished gold. While she does not assume the form of a fish, she apparently
assumes the form of a bird one year and a human the next, so the
tranformation theme is somewhat intact. If this really is the source for
Yeats's interpretation, I wonder where he came by the rest of the poem's
imagery.
From: Aditya_Bhashyam@
Comments on The Song of Wandering Aengus
<and a leetil test of the comments system> (:
A lovely poem - to read and recite. And very poignant.
The repetition in the last 2 lines reminded me of Robert Frost's 'miles to
go...miles to go...'.
- a feeling of longing.
Do the Golden Apples remind you of Perseus?
aditya.
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From: Francesco Tartaglia <francesco.tartaglia@>
Beautiful! Realism, economy, sensuousness.
Daniela.
From: Noname Noway <radioblues@>
William Butler Yeats' poem The Song of the Wandering
Aengus is much simpler than what I hear you make it to
be. It is the story of the 3 stages of a man, if he
is intelligent and lucky.
First, it is the trout that is the object of desire.
But trout are mythical creatures told by elders as the
prize of prizes, but elusive and hard to catch. It
takes skill and wile to trick the animal onto the hook
and then, you must have reflexes like fire to set the
hook and a firm gentleness to bring it to net. So, we
tell our young ones of the valor to be gained by
catching this little piece of silver and, fools that
they are, will get up at 4:00 am to try and fish
amongst the impenetrable tangles of willow for the
prize of manhood and recognition.
But this young man does not follow the rules. He
instead strips a willow wand and hooks a berry to a
thread. No invisible leader, royal coachman and 3
piece fly rod here. This young man is a king and he
acts with an internal motivation regardless of the
rules of angling. He has become innocent of the rules
because he has a fire in his head and responds to it.
He catches a little silver trout but does not throw it
back because it is too small he keeps it and returns
to his abode with only one fish, not enough to make a
meal, but enough, to satisfy the soul. Here he is
changed into an individual who has his own motivations
rather than those handed down to him by others, by the
group.
Sure enough, as soon as he begins his objective
treatment of the fish it is no longer a fish but a
girl, with apple blossoms in her hair. This is the
second myth, the myth of love and desire that fades
when the light grows stronger. Her's is the beauty of
the world and flowers adorn her as naturally as a
fruit tree in spring time. These are the experiences
of a grown man who sees and desires the fruit of the
world. It is Aengus that is hooked now and he will
travel through hollow lands and hilly lands to
discover where she went but she is never found, or, is
found many, many times.
Here is the big change. She is no longer the object of
desire, she is no longer a myth, she is real and he
will find her and kiss her real lips and take her real
hands and they together will enjoy the apples found in
the night and in the day. Both are real and they are
both delicious as he is delicious to her. He now knows
that his quest is ancient as he is ancient and that
the world is old and right and wonderful. There is no
sadness in his awareness or that his journey is
endless and repeated endlessly. He knows who he is and
he sees and knows the world and that is enough.
RHR
From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Gérard?= Ducasse <ducasse@>
The song of Wandering Aengus by W.B.Yeats.
This is my favourite poem in the English language. I have tried
repeatedly to analyse the reasons of its appeal. This is as far as I
have got.
First, there is the sonorous lilt of the poetic phrase, but it is not
the only poem of my knowledge, that posseses such musicality. Then there
is the poignancy of unfulfilled love. We know Yeats is thinking of Maud
Gonne.
"Though I am old from wandering...
I will find out where she has gone."
Further, what strikes the visual mind so vividly are the images of
flickering,, flashing light and colour:
fire, white moths, stars, flickering out, silver, fire aflame,
glimmering, apple blossom, brightening, dappled, silver...moon,
golden...sun,
the mirror of the fire going on in Yeats' mind , reflected in the
reader's imagination.
Gérard Ducasse.
--Boundary_(ID_d0A7ktBRf0OLOqvuNi5+zw)
Content-type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en">
<html>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>The song of Wandering Aengus by W.B.Yeats.</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>This is my favourite poem in the English language. I have tried repeatedly
to analyse the reasons of its appeal. This is as far as I have got.
<p>First, there is the sonorous lilt of the poetic phrase, but it
is not the only poem of my knowledge, that posseses such musicality. Then
there is the poignancy of unfulfilled love. We know Yeats is thinking of
Maud Gonne.
<p>"Though I am old from wandering...
<br>I will find out where she has gone."
<p>Further, what strikes the visual mind so vividly are the images of flickering,,
flashing light and colour:
<p>fire, white moths, stars, flickering out, silver, fire aflame, glimmering,
apple blossom, brightening, dappled, silver...moon, golden...sun,
<p>the mirror of the fire going on in Yeats' mind , reflected in
the reader's imagination.
<p>Gérard Ducasse.</html>
--Boundary_(ID_d0A7ktBRf0OLOqvuNi5+zw)--
From: Ajit Narayanan <ajitq@>
The first time that I heard of this poem was in a Ray Bradbury story
called 'The Golden Apples of the Sun', in which the protagonist quotes
the last two lines. I searched for and found the poem, and was
awestruck by its almost fairy-tale beauty. It also fits into Bradbury's
story well -- though at first sight the story has neither trouts nor
beautiful girls, but rockets and the Sun instead. In fact, come to
think of it, I think almost all of Bradbury's works have the same
Beauty that this poem has, and both Bradbury's stories and this poem
often remind me of each other.
AjitQ
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From: Ajit Narayanan <ajitq@>
The first time that I heard of this poem was in a Ray Bradbury story
called 'The Golden Apples of the Sun', in which the protagonist quotes
the last two lines. I searched for and found the poem, and was
awestruck by its almost fairy-tale beauty. It also fits into Bradbury's
story well -- though at first sight the story has neither trouts nor
beautiful girls, but rockets and the Sun instead. In fact, come to
think of it, I think almost all of Bradbury's works have the same
Beauty that this poem has, and both Bradbury's stories and this poem
often remind me of each other.
AjitQ
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From: "Martha Lamb" <lambmartha@>
This has always been one of my favorite poems--I remember reading it
aloud in front of a class. It is even more powerful when read aloud.
The images are all so vivid and perfect. Eudora Welty has a group of
stories published together under the title of The golden Apples. They
are all about a group of loosely connected people who live in a town in
the Mississippi Delta and together form almost a novel. These are my
favorite of her stories, and I find in them the same magical summery
quality that is in the poem. Martha
From: "Martha Lamb" <lambmartha@>
From: ZWi4471215@
hi,
yes i would agree with your comments; a rather more suitable interpretation
for moderm times. this poem is beautifyl it marks the begining of a love
relationship, base on true romance,hope and a happy ending. i truly enjoded reading
it.a peace of heaven wrap up in lyric form, and that no matter what we do as
human eartlings, we will always be on the quest of what true Love really is!
thanks1
From: ZWi4471215@
In your comments about this poem you have rising the of keep on hoping on the
quest to true love!
That one day we will find it
From: "Cordray, Cole W Mr CMA-UMCD" <Cole.Cordray@>
When I first read this wonderful poem many years ago, I immediately flashed
to my first wife who had died so very young - this poem speaks to me of
eternal hope, love and the sure knowledge of an eternal existence somewhere,
somehow.
This is a song of a man who has lost his only love to death, yet cannot
accept that, and continues to search for her.
I know it well....
Cole W. Cordray, Lieutenant
Supervisor, Team 3
From: "Patricia A. McKnight" <owleyes1@>
I have not been able to enter a comment on Yeat's "The Song of Wandering
Aengus." I shall try this way.
Aengus Og (or Angus or Oengus) is an Irish nature god (they had a
variety) -- one of the Tuatha de Danaan. In "The Crock O Gold" James
Stephens describes him this way:
The god was slender and as swift as the wind. His hair swung about his face
like golden blossoms. His eyes were mild and dancing and his lips smiled
with quiet sweetness. About his head there flew perpetually a ring of
singing birds, and when he spoke, his voice came sweetly from a center of
sweetness.... where he has kissed a bird has flown, where he has trod a
flower has sprung. Singing birds fly around his head at all times.
In another legend he dreams a maiden -- he calls her "Aeslinga" which means
"dream maiden" -- he comes to his mother and father and tells them that he
is sick for this love and begs them to find her for him and betroth her to
him. I have forgotten how this story ends, but it cannot be a happy ending.
aloha
owleyes
From: "Linda Pierce" <lindaonmyown@>
You are all correct. First heard in lyrics in song by Bud and Travis in
the 60's, never listened to Miss Collins, by design. Took a class on
Jung and discovered Yeats. Most beautiful thing written in English
language.
My take - it's a man's poem. Dennis Banks said (I paraphrase), "When
the leather broke my flesh and I bled [Sundance ceremony], I KNEW that
all women were my sisters." Be man enough to bleed like us and you will
find us.
The elusive feminine within a man, found only when becoming fully true
to his man-ness. Jung's Anima, the Sun God and Moon Goddess - ETERNAL.
The most beautiful thing - he KNOWS!
From: "Susan Lawson, WildCat Communications Inc." <susan@>
I read through to the end, hoping to find someone who elucidated the
Jungian interpretation, which seems to fit perfectly with the original
myth, that the maiden is inner woman found in every man. Jung called it the
anima, for she is his soul-image, the yin to his yang. She seems to have
her origin in the personal mother and forever influences how a man sees and
interacts with the women in his life.
Susan C. Lawson
317-882-8353 voice
317-407-0115 cell
1-866-234-4025 fax
susan@
From: "patrick mccully" <patrick.mccully@>
Wandering Aengus Mac Og
While lying asleep one evening Angus was visited by a fair maiden of the
Faery named Caer Ibormeith. So taken with her beauty was he that when
she disappeared as he woke he could think of no other, the thought of
being without her caused him to fall ill, in essence... Love Sick.
Angus enlisted the help of Bodb and together they managed to track her
to a Loch where she was living with 149 other maidens each in the form
of a swan. Each Swan Maiden was bound by a silver chain, which as in all
good tales could only be released by true love.
To gain her love Angus transformed himself into a Swan upon which the
chain that held his love broke in two therefore freeing her. Reunited
with Caer Ibormeith the lovers flew around Loch Bel Dracon three times
singing a song so sweet all who heard it fell asleep for three days.
Angus is known in Celtic Lore as a God of Love and with his Swan Maiden
they are said to have returned to Bruig na Boinne, otherwise known as
New Grange.
From: "jwlenz" <jwlenz@>
Donovan recorded a stunningly beautiful (verbatim) version of this
poem on his album HMS Donovan in the early '70s. That is where I first
heard it.
The imagery is magically powerful. I am reading it in a ceremony of
men as an expression of the longing, seeking, questing that
characterizes many of our lives. The final lines are, I think, a
marvelous statement of what it is that we seek and need: the fruit of
both realms--the direct and the reflected, the masculine and the
feminine, the tangible and the spirit.
Did I say? I LOVE this poem.
Joseph
From: "Pat Ellis" <pelli124@>
I believe this as a dream of which love flows in wave that shows a
loving man in a trance of love. Wishing to find his soul mate his true
love appears. Vanishing from his sight he promises to find the woman of
his dreams. To be such a man he will probably find her once more and
fulfill his dream and become as one.
Andrea
From: "Linda Pierce" <lindaonmyown@>
So many hollows and hills occur and again I find myself drawn to this
song. I notice it is mostly titled The Song of Wandering Aengus. Just
a story about this guy "Angus." I had learned it as The Song of THE
Wandering Aengus and told that AN Aengus was an old man. Can't find my
book of Yeats but I do see both titles in a search. If "the" was there,
why is it almost always dropped?
Anyway, he was going in the right direction when the fire burned (up
there in his head) - into the dark - his unconscious - his soul (down
there). And something did arise. His response was to turn up the fire
and to consume it, to have it. Of course It being his other half, it
became illusive once more and said "keep trying."
He does know that the golden apple will not consume the silver apple.
He knows that he has grown old in the attempt to try again. He knows
that it's eternal.
I think what was missing was a teacher (who was Bodb?). There was no
mid-wife present to TELL him to breath and pay attention through the
bleeding and suffering.
Really LOOK and you will find your other half. And most importantly:
"You can do this!" Be so willing that you also become a chained-up
swan, then you will be released and whole.
From: FARBLUNJET@
Sung most beautifully by Richie Havens on one of his "Mixed Bag" albums from
the '60s. By all means, try to listen to his version.
From: Mrpurple004@
This poem is a love poem from Yeats to Maud Gonne, a woman that serves as his
muse for many other works. He is referring to how he is always chasing her,
but he will never catch her, and she will be just out of reach to him. The
reference to the apples is to the first time that Yeats met Gonne, there is no
mythological meaning to them, it is a personal memory of his.
From: Ruthlea McDonald <anna_bell_lea2001@>
I love this poem , why does it make me cry?
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From: DENEICY@
Wandering Aengus
In "Wandering Aengus" Yeats visits that magical place of super-consciousness
where earthly fish become fairies fairest, where everything is not only
possible, but probable. We readers ache because we too long to transcend the
boundaries of our human perception...or maybe we are remembering something lost?
From: Laurel Sanders <radiumvaluedcustomer@>
I am reminded of two pieces of literature. The
first is The Da Vinci Code. The feminine/masculine
symbolism in this poem has been clearly pointed out in
previous comments, so I don't need to go into it. My
only addition is the added aspect of this whole poem
fitting very well into the Grail Quest, and with that
system of explanation the apples gain another meaning.
The second is Big Fish. I admit I have not read
the book, only seen the movie. It seems that the
story is an extended rendering of this poem; the poem
itself provides more insight into interpreting the
story than the other way around.
-L.
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From: Craiker Ken D <Ken.D.Craiker@>
Why does he use apples instead of berries? Berries worked the first time.
I think he's over doing it, and he needs to go back to fishing instead of
chasing after girls. Thnik about it.
From: skowarsky@ Sun Sep 26 22:45:38 2004
I read this poem this morning with my wife. Although it has been one of
our favorites for 40 years, I felt I understood it for the first time.
I had always wondered about the apples - what do they really symbolize.
Today I realized that they symbolize life itself: the nights and days of
our lives. The silver apples are our nights. The golden apples our
days. The speaker imagines that when he finally does find and kiss his
true love, he will live happily, "plucking" each night and each day, for
the rest of his life. I think there are many overtones suggested by
these images, but I now believe this is the plain root meaning of the
lines.
From: Gerald Grow <gerald.grow@>
I am fortunate to have saved the 1962 LP of Cyril Cusack reading this
poem, and others by Yeats. Cusack, who worked with Yeats, is
magnificent.
Throughout his poetry, Yeats works with the inescapable polarities
that define the arena of our lives. One of those is the gap created
by our ability to imagine perfection, to dream and see visions, to
step into a world of archetypes and images, to imagine a life better
than we know -- and the ordinariness of the preoccupations of
everyday life.
We suffer when that imagined perfection makes the ordinary seem
desolate. We also suffer when the ordinary displaces our dreams. Each
negates the other; it is our task to make each support the other. And
it is a task we can never finish.
There is no escape from wandering between the "floor" we "stoop to"
and the Golden and Silver Apples. To take either alternative
exclusively is a form of death in life -- the cold purity of the monk
or the underwater-swimming busyness of the theater manager.
In Among School Children, this frenzy takes the form of a girl
putting on "burdensome beauty," to be haunted thereafter by the
addictive perfection men see in her, and that, indeed, takes her over
-- for a while.
The Wild Old Wicked Man repudiates the quest for perfection,
enthusiastically embracing the contradictions of our nature. But does
he resolve the oppositions? I think they are with us always, and we
can be torn by their opposing pulls or kind to ourselves and others.
We do not escape them; they are created by the nature of our mind.
Comedy handles these oppositions best, by honoring their unresolvable
inevitability, yet showing us how to feel our dilemmas deeply, laugh
at ourselves, and go on living. Don Quixote. Twelfth Night.
Chaplin's City Lights.
--Gerald
--
Gerald Grow, Ph.D., Professor of Journalism, coordinator of magazine sequence.
Florida A&M University, Tallahassee. ggrow[at-sign]longleaf.net.
Standard email disclaimer at http://longleaf.net/disclaimer.html.
"If it leads to compassion, you know it's knowledge. Otherwise, it's
just more information."
From: Tonyhume@
this poem is the earth, the air. it is fire, it is water. it is moon and sun.
it is you and I
and it is love. (and i wish I had written it)
t
From: Tonyhume@
i have just discovered the donovan rendering of "the song of wandering
aengus"
it is very beautiful, very very beautiful. he phrases those astonishing lines
with
sensitivity and power and takes me in my mind to an early dawn morning
where it is I that threads the berry to catch the little silver trout.
regards
t
From: "Erin M. Taylor" <emtaylor@>
Also known as "Angus the young", he was considered the Irish god of
love. He was a young handsome god that had four birds flying about his
head -- some say they symbolize kisses -- who inspired love in all who
heard them. He was the son of Dagda and Boann ('the wife of Elcmar').
Once, Aengus was troubled by the dream of a young maiden, He instantly
fell in love with her and became love sick. He told his mother Boann and
she searched the whole of Ireland for the maiden, but after a year she
still had not found the maiden. Then Dagda was called and he searched
Ireland for a year, and still did not find the maiden. Finally Bov the
Red, king of the Dananns in Munster and Dagda's aide, was called to
search and after a year he found the maiden.
Aengus was taken to the lake of the Dragon's Mouth, and there he saw 150
maidens all chained with gold into pairs. He spied her at once and her
name was Caer, the daughter of Ethal and Anubal, a prince of the Dananns
of Connact. On November first she and all the other maidens are
transformed into swans for a year. He was told if he could identify her
as a swan he could marry her. On November 1 Aengus went out to the lake
and called to his love, and once he had found her he then turned in to a
swan himself and joined her. They flew off together singing such a
beautiful song that all who heard them fell asleep for three days and
nights.
Aengus had a son called, "Diarmuid Ua Duibhne" or Diarmuid of the Love
Spot. One night while hunting Diarmuid met a maiden who made a magic
love spot appear on his head, and from then on no woman ever looked upon
him with out falling in love with him.
From: "Susan Parker" <skparker@>
I only have "beautiful" written by this poem in an old college textbook.
No other notes. For me, this morning, I like to think of that little
silver trout become glimmering girl with apple blossom in her hair as a
part of oneself that one is handed. On your way to one place, you are
directed to another. Some part of yourself calls your name, and what you
thought was your prize was really just a prologue to a life-changing
event. The real prize. A prize that you will never let go of, even
though it is elusive.
I love Yeats use of apples. Apple blossoms in her hair leading to "I
will . pluck till time and times are done/ The silver apples of the
moon,/ The golden apples of the sun."
All this "because a fire was in my head."
I was right all those years ago: it's a beautiful poem.
Susan