of clay and wattles This shows his romantic desire to escape city life and live close to nature Like Wordsworth - Yeats finds comfort and spiritual joy in the beauty of the natural world Power of Imagination Yeats s poems are full of imagination and dreamlike scenes In The Stolen Child he creates a magical world where fairies dance and sing in the lake They call the human child saying Come away O human child To the waters and the wild This world is full of peace joy and fantasy The dreamy pictures of lakes herons and faeries show his power to turn ordinary things into something magical Like Coleridge - Yeats uses imagination to create a new and beautiful world of poetry Escapism and Idealism The desire to escape from modern life is another romantic trait in Yeats He hated the noise and confusion of the city So in many poems he tries to find peace in an ideal world In Sailing to Byzantium the poet wishes to leave the world of youth and decay He wants to go to Byzantium a holy land of art and spirit There he hopes to become such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Like Keats s - dream of immortality in Ode to a Nightingale Yeats s escape is also spiritual Romantic Melancholy Melancholy or sweet sadness is another mark of Yeats s romantic spirit He often feels lonely tired and sad about the life changes he s experiencing In The Wild Swans at Coole he watches fifty-nine swans resting on the lake He feels that the swans hearts have not grown old but his own life has changed The swans become symbols of youth and timeless beauty This contrast between the poet s age and the swans freedom gives the poem a deep romantic sadness Interest in Myth and Folklore Yeats had a great love for old Irish myths legends and magic He believed that Ireland s ancient stories could bring beauty and pride to modern life In The Wanderings of Oisin he retells the Irish legend of Oisin and the fairy queen The poem is full of music magic and heroic adventure He often used mystical numbers such as nine or fifty-nine derived from Irish folklore His use of myth and magic reminds us of the romantic poets love for wonder and mystery In conclusion W B Yeats may be a modern poet by time but he is romantic by heart His poems reflect imagination nature sadness escapism and love for beauty Like Wordsworth he worships nature like Keats he searches for eternal beauty and like Coleridge he creates a world of dream and magic All these elements make Yeats one of the most excellent romantic spirits of modern poetry