POEM FOR TODAY. William Butler Yeats and Carl Phillips
Leda and the Swan , a 16th century copy after a lost painting by Michelangelo Theme of Sex from Shmoop.com Leda and the Swan by W. B. 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? Leda, After the Swan by Carl Phillips http://www.sampsoniaway.org/literary-voices/2010/08/...