A Man Young and Old: 4. 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.
Read Complete AnalysesI 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.
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