A Man Young and Old: 4. the Death of the Hare
I have pointed out the yelling pack, The hare leap to the wood, And when I pass a compliment Rejoice as lover should At the drooping of an eye, At the mantling of the blood. Then suddenly my heart is wrung By her distracted air And I remember wildness lost And after, swept from there, Am set down standing in the wood At the death of the hare.
A Man Young and Old: 4. the Death of the Hare - context Summary
From the Tower (1928)
This short lyric appears in Yeats's 1928 collection The Tower. It frames a hunting scene—the chase and the dead hare—as a moment in which the speaker confronts loss and the fading of wildness. Placed late in his career, the poem reflects recurring Tower themes: aging, memory, and the contrast between youthful passion and inevitable decline. Its spare narrative registers personal and cultural elegy.
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