Poetry Thursday - The Song of Wandering Aengus by William Butler Yeats

"The crowd hushed and “Yeats” (the actor Colm Farrell) began
to declaim a poem." (by Róisín Curé, via)

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 a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone 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 (via)

Apart from the lovely and famous "The Lake Isle of Innisfree", which we "did" at school, I'm not aware of having all that much contact with Yeats' poetry, yet his work has appeared in Poetry Thursday twice before - The Second Coming and Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water. Biographical details and links can be found there.

Thanks to Sheila for this link - might anyone else out there wish to divulge any poetry encounters?