Content Introduction main part. I. William Butler Yeats and his biography I. Writing style

I.3 Poetic observation and analysis
There are many works by William Butler Yeats that I recommend, including a large collection of poetry, a few short stories, plays and a work of both fiction and non-fiction. These are just a few of my favorite poems and some observations and analyses of his style, imagery and theme. Each of these poems, with the exception of the last two are from an anthology by Dorothy Mermin and Herbert Tucker, called Victorian Literature 1830-1900. I numbered the lines to make it easier to locate some of the things I'm talking about.
Autumn is over the long leaves that love us,
And over the mice in the barley sheaves;
Yellow the leaves of the rowan above us,
And yellow the wet wild-strawberry leaves.
The hour of the waning of love has beset us, ₅
And weary and worn are our sad souls now;
Let us part, ere the season of passion forget us,
With a kiss and a tear on thy drooping brow.

The Falling of the Leaves

This short, single stanza, eight-line poem described in one word: melancholy. The image of the falling of leaves in this poem, symbolizing the passing of a lively summer into a cold and death-like winter, inspires a feeling of sadness and euphoria as the speaker describes a dying love. The back-to-back use of the color yellow in lines three and four indicate melancholy, as the color yellow is often associated historically with the melancholia ailment. His intentional choice of words such as "waning", "weary" and "worn" demonstrate the weariness of soul associated with the feeling of melancholy (and also creates an alliteration of sound for auditory effect). Just the image of something falling inspires a sense of something dying, losing strength, losing vitality; the perfect metaphor for a dying romance. The image of a falling tear and a drooping brow in the last line maintain the consistency of this symbolic metaphor perfectly.
This poem is one of my favorites of Yeats, because it manages to create such a sincere emotion while being so simple and without being overdone or exaggerated.
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made.
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, ₅
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; ₁₀
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.