<meta>

<name>William Butler <index>Yeats</index></name>

</author>

<date>September 1923</date>

<source>75 years is enough to put a classic into the public domain, is it not? This poem is available any number of places on line.</source>

</meta>

<line>A sudden blow: the great wings beating <rhyme on="a">still</rhyme></line>

<line>Above the staggering girl, her thighs <rhyme on="b">caressed</rhyme></line>

<line>By the dark webs, her nape caught in his <rhyme on="a">bill</rhyme>,</line>

<line>He holds her helpless breast upon his <rhyme on="b">breast</rhyme>.</line>

</quatrain>

<line>How can those terrified vague fingers <rhyme on="c">push</rhyme></line>

<line>The feathered glory from her loosening <rhyme on="d">thighs</rhyme>?</line>

<line>And how can body, laid in that white <rhyme on="c">rush</rhyme>,</line>

<line>But feel the strange heart beating where it <rhyme on="d">lies</rhyme>?</line>

</quatrain>

</octave>

<line>A shudder in the loins engenders <rhyme on="e">there</rhyme></line>

<line>The broken wall, the burning roof and <rhyme on="f">tower</rhyme></line>

<line>And Agamemnon dead. Being so caught <rhyme on="g">up</rhyme>,</line>

<line>So mastered by the brute blood of the <rhyme on="e">air</rhyme>,</line>

</quatrain>

<line>Did she put on his knowledge with his <rhyme on="f">power</rhyme></line>

<line>Before the indifferent beak could let her <rhyme on="g">drop</rhyme>?</line>

</couplet>

</sestet>

</sonnet>

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