Presences
Presences - context Summary
Published 1899 in Collection
Written and published in 1899 as part of The Wind Among the Reeds, Yeats’rame presents a single uncanny night in which the speaker encounters a procession of women. The poem stages these figures—harlot, child, possible queen—as embodiments of conflicting aspects of love, desire and poetic longing. Its mood is dreamlike and symbolic, reflecting Yeats’arly interest in mythic and psychological presence rather than literal narrative.
Read Complete AnalysesThis night has been so strange that it seemed As if the hair stood up on my head. From going-down of the sun I have dreamed That women laughing, or timid or wild, In rustle of lace or silken stuff, Climbed up my creaking stair. They had read All I had rhymed of that monstrous thing Returned and yet unrequited love. They stood in the door and stood between My great wood lectern and the fire Till I could hear their hearts beating: One is a harlot, and one a child That never looked upon man with desire. And one, it may be, a queen.
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