William Butler Yeats

The Wheel

The Wheel - meaning Summary

Seasonal Longing and Mortality

The poem describes a cycle of seasonal expectation that mirrors human desire. As people call spring, then summer, they shift tastes and declare winters best until longing returns. This restless turning suggests that what feels like yearning for life is intertwined with an attraction to death. The closing line reframes the emotional disturbance as a longing for the tomb, presenting desire and mortality as two phases of the same recurring wheel.

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Through winter-time we call on spring, And through the spring on summer call, And when abounding hedges ring Declare that winter's best of all; And after that there s nothing good Because the spring-time has not come - Nor know that what disturbs our blood Is but its longing for the tomb.

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