To what extent is Yeats concerned with his status of a victim of unrequited love?

Alternatively, ‘the Cold Heaven’ structurally is very poetically organised. The poem consists of twelve alexandrines rhyming in the form of (ababcdcdefef). The three quatrains each move to form recognisable emotional experience and speculation of love interest also. Furthermore the tight regularity of structure is appropriate for the poem which offers such concentrated and yet controlled love passion.

Equally in ‘Wild Swans’ the structure reflects the perfect symmetry of the scene as five six lined stanzas of alternating four and three lines, which rhyme in the form of abcbdd.

Contextually, Yeats was a poet who is famously known for his obsession with Maud Gonne, which dates back to 1889, “the troubling of my life began”. Despite proposals of marriage, Maud Gonne remained a muse and simply a source of inspiration. She is often identified with Helen of Troy who drove men to folly and destruction. Gonne becomes a symbol of the drive of the complexity of human relationships and unrequiting love. Yeats appears to have a destructible preoccupation with the unattainable woman.

Similarly, ‘the Cold Heaven’ is primarily an expression of an overwhelming personal experience, which is also universal as one man’s anguish, and passion becomes relevant to all humanity. Yeats is possessed by the memory of “love crossed long ago”.

Alternatively ‘Wild Swans’ is a lament for loneliness, youthfulness and love. This is skilfully blended in with a haunting evaluation on the swans of Coole Park.

Also, ‘Among School Children’ conveys the smiling public man looking at the school children and recollecting earlier versions of Maud Gonne. Yeats describes the ‘Ledean body’ and describes the story of the eggs, which turns to him to the image of Plato’s Symposium. Yeats shows their separate natures, but reconciled and blended into a sphere.

Within ‘the Cold Heaven’ Yeats suggests that love has a destructive potential and brings about a storm of feelings that pore through the poet and into his work. Yeats uses the word “riddled” to suggest a revelation and understanding of his pain and despair of unrequiting love. Furthermore, Yeats stresses that his problems bring pain and are a riddle or puzzle in which love is “out of season” and should be dead. However, Yeats leaves blame “took the blame cut all sense and reason”. This quotation has duel meanings as Yeats takes more blame than reason demanded or that he took the blame because of his own guild that cannot be dictated to by sense or reason.

In comparison, to ‘Among school Children’, the poet again undergoes extreme emotional turmoil, which stirs the imagination and transforms the reality of the present in a vivid past. “She stands before me as a living child” which shows former youth restored as his lover, but is soon dispelled by the image of her in the present reality. “Her present image floats to mind/Did Quattro Centro finger fashion”. Yeats uses a reference to Da Vinci, but dwells’ upon the erosion of his lovers’ beauty. However, it could also be suggested that Yeats is conveying that Maud Gonne still represents artistry even in her old and decrepit fashion.