The Circus Animals’ Desertion
Poetry
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William Butler Yeats
The Circus Animals’ Desertion Full Poem
I
I sought a theme and sought for it in vain,
I sought it daily for six weeks or so.
Maybe at last being but a broken man
I must be satisfied with my heart, although
Winter and summer till old age began
My circus animals were all on show,
Those stilted boys, that burnished chariot,
Lion and woman and the Lord knows what.
II
What can I but enumerate old themes,
First that sea-rider Oisin led...
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The Circus Animals' Desertion Summary
This poem is composed in search of poetic thought in nature. He compared the characters in his poems to circus animals. "The Circus Animals' Desertion" is a poem on the interrelationship of life and art. In it, the seventies-aged poet looks back at work written in his twenties and early middle age, to examine how much of his real life has passed. In "The Circus Animals' Desertion" he confesses his...
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The Circus Animals' Desertion Key Facts
Title: The Circus Animals' Desertion
Poet: W. B. Yeats (1865 – 1939)
Published Date: 1939
Themes: Identity crisis, artistic disillusionment, the search for meaning, the struggle between reality and imagination, and the decline of inspiration.
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