William Butler Yeats

Leda And The Swan

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? 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;