Presences

W. B. Yeatsfirst published 1917from The Wild Swans at Coole14 lines

This night has been so strange that it seemedAs if the hair stood up on my head.From going-down of the sun I have dreamedThat women laughing, or timid or wild,In rustle of lace or silken stuff,Climbed up my creaking stair. They had readAll I had rhymed of that monstrous thingReturned and yet unrequited love.They stood in the door and stood betweenMy great wood lectern and the fireTill I could hear their hearts beating:One is a harlot, and one a childThat never looked upon man with desire,And one it may be a queen.

Text: Poetry, by W. B. Yeats (Standard Ebooks, 2024), from the collected editions of 1908 to 1928. Public domain.

In brief

Summary

Three ghostly women visit a poet's room after reading his love poems.

A strange night makes the speaker's hair stand on end. Since sunset he has dreamed that women, some laughing, some timid or wild, rustling in lace and silk, climbed his creaking stair. They had read everything he had written about "Returned and yet unrequited love". They stand between his lectern and the fire, so close he can hear their hearts. The poem ends by naming three of them: a harlot, a child who has never felt desire, and one who "may be a queen".

Lines to remember

Returned and yet unrequited love.

And one it may be a queen.

Line by line

Lines 1 to 3A strange night
The poem begins with a physical shiver, "the hair stood up on my head", before it explains anything. "From going-down of the sun" gives the dream a whole night to grow in.
Lines 4 to 8Women on the stair
The women are heard before they are seen: laughter, the "rustle of lace or silken stuff", a "creaking stair". They are his readers, drawn by what he has "rhymed" of love, which he calls a "monstrous thing" because it is returned and yet unfulfilled.
Lines 9 to 14Harlot, child, queen
The women crowd between the lectern, where he writes, and the fire, until he hears "their hearts beating". The last three lines sort them into types. The final guess, "it may be a queen", is the most tentative and the most charged.

Themes

Love and the poet

The women come because of his poems: "They had read / All I had rhymed". Love here is "monstrous", a thing both "Returned and yet unrequited", loved back and yet never satisfied. The poet's work has summoned presences he cannot control, and they gather at his desk, the place where the poems were made.

The supernatural

The title and the raised hair suggest ghosts, but the women might equally be dreams or memories. Yeats keeps the doubt alive: "it seemed", "I have dreamed", "it may be". The creaking stair and the beating hearts make them uncannily physical all the same.

Kinds of woman

The closing list, harlot, innocent child and queen, sets out three sharply different kinds of woman and of love. Readers have often tried to match them to women in Yeats's life, with the queen usually taken as Maud Gonne, but the poem leaves them as figures in a dream.

Context

The poem was collected in The Wild Swans at Coole (Cuala Press, 1917), a book much concerned with ageing, memory and the women Yeats had loved. Its companion poems nearby, such as "A Deep-sworn Vow" and "Broken Dreams", also circle an old, unfinished love.

Form

Fourteen lines in a single block, like a loose sonnet, with rhymes scattered irregularly ("seemed" and "dreamed", "between" and "queen") and some half-rhymes such as "stuff" and "love". The uneven pattern suits a mind unsettled by a strange night, and the last rhyme, "queen", is held back until the final word.