In the Seven Woods
In the Seven Woods - context Summary
Written August 1902
Written in August 1902 and published in 1903, Yeats’s "In the Seven Woods" balances private calm with public disappointment. The speaker finds temporary respite in rural images — pigeons, bees, Quiet — and consciously sets aside "old bitterness" about political change at Tara and the rise of vulgar new power. The poem records a moment of personal contentment amid ongoing national unease, suggesting patience before an inevitable reckoning.
Read Complete AnalysesI have heard the pigeons of the Seven Woods Make their faint thunder, and the garden bees Hum in the lime-tree flowers; and put away The unavailing outcries and the old bitterness That empty the heart. I have forgot awhile Tara uprooted, and new commonness Upon the throne and crying about the streets And hanging its paper flowers from post to post, Because it is alone of all things happy. I am contented, for I know that Quiet Wanders laughing and eating her wild heart Among pigeons and bees, while that Great Archer, Who but awaits His hour to shoot, still hangs A cloudy quiver over Pairc-na-lee. August 1902
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