The Nineteenth Century and After

The Nineteenth Century and After - meaning Summary

Pleasure in Small Remnants

Yeats confronts the loss of a grand, vanished song and insists on finding quiet pleasure in what remains. The poem shifts from absence to immediate sensory detail — the rattle of pebbles beneath a receding wave — as a modest source of consolation. It emphasizes acceptance of change and attentive appreciation of small, transient sounds as enough to sustain feeling after a greater beauty has passed.