To a Squirrel at Kyle-na-no

W. B. Yeatsfirst published 1917from The Wild Swans at Coole8 lines

Earlier titled "To a Squirrel at Kyle-na-gno"

Come play with me;Why should you runThrough the shaking treeAs though I’d a gunTo strike you dead?When all I would doIs to scratch your headAnd let you go.

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

In brief

Summary

A walker asks a frightened squirrel why it runs from him.

The speaker calls to a squirrel in a wood and asks why it runs off through the shaking branches, as though he had a gun. All he wants is to scratch its head and let it go. The poem is tiny, light and playful, but it carries a hint of sadness: the gentle intention cannot be explained to the animal, and fear keeps them apart.

Lines to remember

Come play with me;

And let you go.

Line by line

Lines 1 to 5Why run
"Come play with me" is a child's invitation. The squirrel's flight is shown in one quick phrase, "the shaking tree", and the speaker imagines how he must look to it: a man with a gun, ready "To strike you dead".
Lines 6 to 8Only a scratch
His real wish is tiny and tender: to "scratch your head / And let you go". The last line gives the squirrel back its freedom, so the poem ends on release rather than capture.

Themes

Humans and nature

The squirrel has good reason to fear a man: "As though I'd a gun" admits what men usually do in woods. The speaker wants a friendlier relation, play instead of hunting, but he cannot make the animal understand, and the "shaking tree" shows it gone.

Innocence and play

The voice is almost a child's, with its simple words and its question "Why should you run". The wish to "play" and then "let you go" asks for nothing, which makes the squirrel's fear all the more touching. The poem is content to stay small, like the moment it records.

Context

The poem was collected in The Wild Swans at Coole (Cuala Press, 1917); an earlier version of the title spelt the place "Kyle-na-gno". Kyle-na-no is one of the Seven Woods of Coole Park, Lady Gregory's estate in County Galway, where Yeats spent many summers.

Form

Eight very short lines, mostly of two beats, in alternate rhyme: "me" and "tree", "run" and "gun", "dead" and "head", with "do" and "go" a half-rhyme. The quick, light lines move like the squirrel itself.