LEDA AND THE SWAN
            William Butler Yeats
                c. 1923
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  A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
  Above the staggering girl, her thighs carressed
  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?
  
                            
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