The Death of the Hare

W. B. Yeatsfirst published 1928from The Tower12 lines

The Death of the Hare

I have pointed out the yelling pack,The hare leap to the wood,And when I pass a complimentRejoice as lover shouldAt the drooping of an eyeAt the mantling of the blood.

Then suddenly my heart is wrungBy her distracted airAnd I remember wildness lostAnd after, swept from there,Am set down standing in the woodAt the death of the hare.

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

In brief

Summary

A lover sees in his tamed beloved a hare brought down by hounds.

The fourth poem of "A Man Young and Old". The man has shown his beloved a hunt, the "yelling pack" and the hare leaping for the wood, and he has played the lover well, paying compliments and delighting in her lowered eyes and blushes. Then her "distracted air" wrings his heart. He remembers "wildness lost", and suddenly he is carried off to stand in the wood "At the death of the hare". The hunt was a picture of their love: in winning her, he has killed something wild in her.

Lines to remember

I have pointed out the yelling pack,

And I remember wildness lost

At the death of the hare.

Line by line

Lines 1 to 6The courtship
He has "pointed out the yelling pack" and the hare's leap, and paid his compliments, rejoicing "as lover should" at "the drooping of an eye" and "the mantling of the blood". The phrase "as lover should" hints that he is playing a part, and the hunt and the courtship are laid side by side.
Lines 7 to 12Wildness lost
"Then suddenly" the mood breaks. Her "distracted air" wrings his heart, and he remembers "wildness lost". He is "swept from there" and "set down standing in the wood" at the kill. The passive verbs make it feel like a vision he cannot resist: he sees that he is the hunter and she the hare.

Themes

Love as a hunt

The poem never says outright that the woman is the hare, but the two stanzas make the link. The pack chases the hare to the wood; the lover pursues the woman with compliments. Her blushes and "drooping" eyes, which he rejoiced in, turn out to be signs of surrender, and the "death of the hare" is what his success has cost her.

Guilt and wildness

What wrings his heart is "wildness lost": the free, untamed spirit she had before he won her. Her "distracted air" shows something gone out of her. The poem is a moment of sudden conscience, and the plain last line, "At the death of the hare", lands with the weight of a verdict.

Context

"The Death of the Hare" is the fourth poem in "A Man Young and Old", first collected in The Tower (Macmillan, 1928). After the cold, moon-like woman of "First Love" and "Human Dignity" and the drowning lad of "The Mermaid", the roles here are reversed: it is the man whose love does the damage.

Form

Two six-line stanzas in ballad metre, four-beat lines alternating with three-beat lines, with only the short lines rhyming ("wood", "should", "blood"; "air", "there", "hare"). The folk-song movement and the hunting scene give the poem the feel of an old country ballad with a painful twist.

The Death of the Hare