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Close Reading: Leda and the Swan - W. B. Yeats

Leda and the Swan BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS A sudden blow: the great wings beating still  Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed  By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,  He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.  How can those terrified vague fingers push  The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?  And how can body, laid in that white rush,  But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?  A shudder in the loins engenders there  The broken wall, the burning roof and tower  And Agamemnon dead.  Being so caught up,  So mastered by the brute blood of the air,  Did she put on his knowledge with his power  Before the indifferent beak could let her drop? WB Yates Leda and the swan is a daring sonnet by Irish poet William Butler Yates that retells the story from Greek mythology of Leda,s impregnation  by the god...