Among the School Children
Poetry
|
William Butler Yeats
Among School Children Full Poem
I
I walk through the long schoolroom questioning;
A kind old nun in a white hood replies;
The children learn to cipher and to sing,
To study reading-books and history,
To cut and sew, be neat in everything
In the best modern way—the children's eyes
In momentary wonder stare upon
A sixty-year-old smiling public man.
II
I dream of a Ledaean body, bent
Above a sinking fire, a tale that she
Tol...
Read Among School Children Full Poem
Among the School Children Key Facts
Key Facts
Poet: William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
Original Title: Among School Children
Written Time: 1926 (late period of Yeats’s life)
First Published: In literary journals in 1927, and was later collected in his 1928 book of poems, The Tower.
Form: Meditative Lyric Poem
Genre: Philosophical, Symbolic, and Reflective Poetry
Tone: Thoughtful, Melancholic, Reflective, and Spiritual...
Expand Among the School Children Key Facts
Among the School Children Theme
Themes
The Conflict Between Youth and Old Age: One of the central themes of this poem is the deep contrast between youth and old age and its psychological impact. Yeats, as a sixty-year-old man, visits a school where the innocent faces, laughter, and energy of the children take him back to memories of his own youth. He reflects that once he, too, was full of life and vitality, but now he has becom...
Expand Among the School Children Theme
Among the School Children Quotations
Quotes
“O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?”
Explanation: This is the most famous and philosophical line of the poem. Here Yeats expresses the unity between art and life — between the dancer and the dance, the creator and the creation. He suggests that in the highest form of beauty, there is no separation between body and spirit, action and in...
Expand Among the School Children Quotations
Among the School Children Summary
Summary
Stanza 1 – The Poet in the Schoolroom and Self-Reflection: In the opening stanza, Yeats presents himself as an aged statesman visiting a school at the age of sixty. A kind nun explains to him how the children are learning — they read, sing, sew, and are trained to be neat and disciplined. The children, full of curiosity, gaze at this “sixty-year-old smiling public man.” This scene triggers...
Expand Among the School Children Summary