An Analysis of Blake's “Wild Swans of Coole” “The Wild Swans of Coole” is a poem that deals with the process of aging by William Butler Yeats. It is a deeply personal poem that explores the cycle of life through nature. The poem is set in Coole Park in autumn, located on Lady Gregory's estate. The poet stands on or near the shore of a large pond and observes the swans. Nineteen years have passed since his first visit to this place, and it is during this visit that he begins to realize that he is getting old. The poet parallels nature in the poem because it represents his current state while, in the poem, there is a contrast between the poet and the swan because the swan is used as a metaphor for the poet's youth. The poem is written in iambic pentameter and consists of five pairs of stressed and unstressed syllables. The use of nature in the poem serves to illustrate the age of the poet. The first line of the poem, “The trees are in their autumnal beauty,” presents the reader with a sense of maturity. The trees are ready to complete their annual cycle by losing their leaves. A vision of bare branches comes to mind after reading this line, representing the vulnerability of a bare tree. The leaves that the tree lost protected the “skeleton” of the tree. Like the tree, the poet will also lose something when his own cycle is almost over. The leaves can also be associated with the poet's youth; like a tree without its leaves, man without his youth is vulnerable. The poet will lose his youth and, in his old age, he will also be exposed to the rigors of the world. The use of the line "The forest paths are dry" in line 2 reinforces the first line of the poem by presenting the reader with an image of dried...... middle of paper ......eping, but he wakes up in fact of his death. "The Wild Swans at Coole" is a poem dominated by the ideas of the poet's youth and the presence of death in his future. Yeat's uses symbols such as nature to represent his current personality and swans to represent his youth. During this nineteenth visit of the poet to Coole, he becomes aware of his age. He parallels much of what he sees in nature and envies the swans because they represent a permanence that the poet was unable to achieve. It's as if time has stood still on this pond because it's the same pond Yeat's remembers from nineteen years ago. The end of the poem foreshadows the poet's demise, and it can be assumed that this visit will be his last to Coole Park on Lady Gregory's estate. Works Cited: Parrish, Stephen The Wild Swans at Coole (Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press, 1995)