Uncertain Of The Beauty Of The Swans example essay topic

In The Wild Swans at Cool, author William Butler Yeats uses different elements of poetry to convey the main thought of the poem, which is where would we be without nature and it's beauty. William Yeats views the beauty of nature by looking at the swans in the water. With the trees "in their autumn beauty", the speaker walks down a wooded path to come upon the water, which reflects the October sky. "Under the October twilight the water mirrors a still sky". This is showing the calamity of the water and nature in general. Upon the water float "nine-and-fifty swans".

It is odd that there is a number such as fifty-nine, because that is an odd number, rather than a more simple or notable number such as fifty or sixty. The swans, as a symbol, seem to be part of a world that Yeats both admired and hated. In the next stanza Yeats starts by saying that he has come there for the past nineteen years, "the nineteenth autumn has come upon me since I first made my count". This is quite a long time for someone to come to the same place; therefore this place means something special to him. Also from the passage we learn that every time that he comes he counts the swans on the water. Also in the second stanza he views the swans, "scatter wheeling in great broken rings".

Here Yeats paints the picture showing how delicate and beautiful nature is in the rings that are formed, "upon their clamorous wings. Then the train of thought flows into how he is sort of angry from looking at the swans, "I have looked upon those brilliant creatures and now my heart is sore". Yeats is sad because he has aged but the swans haven't and they are still beautiful in every way. The speaker says that his heart is sore, for after nineteen autumns of watching and being cheered by the swans, he finds that everything in his life has changed. "All's changed since I, hearing at twilight, the first time on this shore". Twilight is the time of day in both the earlier and the later times of the speaker's life seems significant and related to the, "bell-beat" sound of the swans wings.

These lines contrast the previous lines where he thought that they were so wonderful. Does the, "trod with a lighter tread" refer to the speaker or to the "bell-beat" of the swan's wings? This may be another identification of the speaker's years with the number of swans corresponding to that of "nine and fifty" in line six and the incomplete count in the second stanza. Continuing with the idea that the swans are beautiful, the speaker creates an image of two swans swimming next to each other regardless of the cold. "Unwearied still, lover by lover, they paddle in the cold companionable streams". He sort of wishes that he could be like the swans in the sense that he could go on forever in happiness.

Their hearts, the speaker says, "have not grown cold", and wherever they go they are attended by "passion or conquest". Once again he is stating here that the swans have not grown old or apart in the nineteen autumns that he has come to the water. This does not necessarily mean that he is weary of his heart has grown old. The last stanza would seem to confirm this closer identification by the reference to "now" and the question concerning the unknown future that he has ahead.

The contrast is signaled by "but" is that of their drifting "on still water", the same water, it would seem, that "mirrors a still sky" in the first stanza. This is saying that because of the mirror in the sky you would think that the swans would be in the same place but because of the word "but" he is not all that sure what the future for holds. This uncertainty shows a lot about the speaker by showing us that he could quite possible be scared of the future. In the end of the final stanza he notices that the swans have "flown away", and he wonders who is now going to notice their beauty. Will it be people at a "lakes edge or pool?" This part of the poem expresses a sad tone because he misses the swans. In the beginning he was uncertain of the beauty of the swans and if he liked them or not but after so many years of going to see them he realizes that they are beautiful and in a sense misses them.

It seems that the speaker is uncertain about death due to his old age. With the swans just up and leaving he is not sure if that is going to happen to him in the future. This uncertainty could be related to the afterlife as well. The speaker concludes with the meaning that no matter what type of nature, it is beautiful and represents something powerful and special that all of us should recognize.