Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
The speaker mourns the disappearance of wild, natural, or mystical figures that once captivated them.
In plain terms
The wild and mystical things I loved are gone.
What can you take from it?
Appreciate wonder before it fades.

Where it applies

  • looking back
  • environmental loss
  • artistic reflection

Putting it to work

  • cherish wonder
  • document what remains

Questions to consider

  • What wild things are lost?
  • What do you miss?

Another view

It assumes all wild things have vanished everywhere.

More from William Butler Yeats

  1. All shuffle there; all cough in ink; All wear the carpet with their shoes; All think what other people think; All know the man their neighbour knows. Lord, wha…

    Permalink to quote #75
  2. I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their day.

    Permalink to quote #77
  3. I know what wages beauty gives, How hard a life her servant lives, Yet praise the winters gone: There is not a fool can call me friend, And I may dine at journ…

    Permalink to quote #74

Related quotes

  1. How small a part of time they share That are so wondrous sweet and fair!

    Edmund WallerEdmund Waller quote #8
  2. Sweet April-time - O cruel April-time! Year after year returning, with a brow Of promise, and red lips with longing paled, And backward-hidden hands that clutc…

    Dinah CraikDinah Craik quote #1
  3. Maybe that's what life is... a wink of the eye and winking stars.

    Jack KerouacJack Kerouac quote #1