The Cold Heaven
The Cold Heaven - context Summary
Published in the Tower
Published in The Tower (1928), the poem records a sudden, overwhelming vision of a cold, luminous heaven that triggers an emotional and spiritual crisis. Memories of youthful love and long-buried guilt surge up, leaving the speaker riddled with light, trembling and weeping. The closing question ponders the state of the awakened soul—naked, wandering, or punished—framing themes of aging, mortality, and spiritual awakening central to Yeats's late work.
Read Complete AnalysesSuddenly I saw the cold and rook-delighting heaven That seemed as though ice burned and was but the more ice, And thereupon imagination and heart were driven So wild that every casual thought of that and this Vanished, and left but memories, that should be out of season With the hot blood of youth, of love crossed long ago; And I took all thc blame out of all sense and reason, Until I cried and trembled and rocked to and fro, Riddled with light. Ah! when the ghost begins to quicken, Confusion of the death-bed over, is it sent Out naked on the roads, as the books say, and stricken By the injustice of the skies for punishment?
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