The Ragged Wood
The Ragged Wood - context Summary
Published in 1899
Written for The Wind Among the Reeds (1899), the poem frames a speaker’s yearning in rustic, fairy-like scenes. Pastoral images of water, stag, and a “queen-woman” sky create a dreamworld in which the speaker laments love’s exclusivity and expresses possessive longing. The language mixes lyric tenderness and frustrated desire; the repeated wish that only the speaker and beloved had ever loved reflects Yeats’s unrequited feelings for Maud Gonne.
Read Complete AnalysesO hurry where by water among the trees The delicate-stepping stag and his lady sigh, When they have but looked upon their images - Would none had ever loved but you and I! Or have you heard that sliding silver-shoed Pale silver-proud queen-woman of the sky, When the sun looked out of his golden hood? - O that none ever loved but you and I! O hurty to the ragged wood, for there I will drive all those lovers out and cry - O my share of the world, O yellow hair! No one has ever loved but you and I.
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