The Moods

W. B. Yeatsfirst published 1899from The Wind Among the Reeds7 lines

Time drops in decay,Like a candle burnt out,And the mountains and woodsHave their day, have their day;What one in the routOf the fire-born moodsHas fallen away?

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

In brief

Summary

Everything decays except the fire-born moods.

In seven short lines the poem sets passing time against something that lasts. Time "drops in decay" like a burnt-out candle, and even the mountains and woods "Have their day". Then comes a question: which of "the fire-born moods" has ever fallen away? The unspoken answer is none. The moods, great states of feeling, outlast the physical world, as if they belonged to eternity rather than to us.

Lines to remember

Time drops in decay,

Of the fire-born moods

Line by line

Lines 1 to 4All things pass
Time "drops in decay" like "a candle burnt out", dripping away. Even "the mountains and woods" have only a lifespan: they "Have their day, have their day". The repetition sounds like a shrug, or a sigh.
Lines 5 to 7The moods remain
The poem ends by asking which one "in the rout / Of the fire-born moods" has ever "fallen away". The silence answers: none. Fire here is not the candle's dying flame but something that never goes out.

Themes

Permanence

The poem turns the usual order upside down. Mountains and woods, the solid world, pass; moods, which we think of as fleeting, endure. Calling them "fire-born" gives them an origin beyond nature, and the candle image sharpens the contrast: the physical flame burns out, the fire of the moods does not.

Time and nature

Time does not simply destroy things here; it suffers decay itself, dropping away like wax from a candle. The mountains and woods "Have their day" and go. The poem compresses the whole life of the natural world into a few short beats, leaving only the moods standing.

Context

The poem appeared in The Wind Among the Reeds (1899), placed third, after "The Hosting of the Sidhe" and "The Everlasting Voices". Together the three open the book with forces beyond ordinary life: the faery host, voices calling from eternity, and here the moods.

Form

Seven very short lines, most with two beats, rhyming ABCABCA ("decay", "day", "away"; "out", "rout"; "woods", "moods"). The tight, returning rhymes make the poem feel like a riddle or a charm, and it ends on an open question.