THE WILD SWANS AT COOLE The trees are in their autumn beauty, The woodland paths are dry, Under the October twilight the water Mirrors a still sky; Upon the brimming water among the stones Are nine-and-fifty swans. The nineteenth autum has come upon me Since I first made my count; I saw, before I had well finished, All suddenly mount And scatter wheeling in great broken rings Upon their clamorous wings. I have looked upon those brillant creatures, And now my heart is sore. All's changed since I, hearing at twilight, The first time on this shore, The bell-beat of their wings above my head, Trod with a lighter tread. Unwearied still, lover by lover They paddle in the cold Companionable streams or climb the air; Their hearts have not grown old; Passion or conquest, wander where they will, Attend upon them still. But now they drift on the still water, Mysterious, beautiful; Among what rushes will they build, By what lake's edge or pool Delight men's eyes when I awake some day To find they have flown away? -- Dublin's William Butler Yeats, 1917. Note -- Coole is the estate of the Irish playwright Lady Augusta Gregory (1852-1932). Yeats began to spend his summers at Coole in 1897, often staying into the fall. Once home of Lady Gregory, it is now a national forest and wildlife park (per my dated tourist guide), where ruined walls and stables remain of a once fine house where she held literary court with other notables as Sean O'Casey, G. B. Shaw, J. M. Synge, and Frank O'Connor. There is a famous tree there where they carved their initials while taking after dinner air, and Coole Lake still has swans). Roxborough, in Co. Galway, was the childhood home of Lady Gregory, Yeats' colleague and patron, whose practical nature helped the Abbey Theatre to survive its early years.