Lyric Poem · Love
The Song of Wandering Aengus
by W. B. Yeats · 1899
I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
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“The Song of Wandering Aengus” by W. B. Yeats — quilloak.com/poems/the-song-of-wandering-aengus
Quick facts
- Poem
- The Song of Wandering Aengus
- Poet
- W. B. Yeats
- Published
- 1899
- Length
- 24 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem, Rhyming Poems
- Themes
- Love, Dreams & Sleep, Nature
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 24 lines · one 24-line stanza
- Line length
- Mostly 8-syllable lines (tetrameter length).
Want the rules this form is measured against? Read what makes a lyric poem, or run your own draft through the form checker to see the same measurements on your lines. How we measure · Report a mistake
Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the cited edition and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- W. B. Yeats1865–1939
- Source record
- WikisourceThe Song of Wandering Aengus by william-butler-yeats, Wikisource transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- 1899
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 a7513bbcc80dbbad…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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