My favourite WB Yeats poem: Olwen Fouéré on 'The Song of Wandering Aengus'

Actor and creative artist Olwen Fouéré discusses her favourite poem by WB Yeats as we approach his 150th birthday


Why Olwen Fouéré chose this poem

I first came across this poem when I was about 10 years old. It may have been in a school poetry book. It speaks to me now as it spoke to me then, when a fire is in my head, burning with questions and yearnings, before an idea or a vision or a love is born. The vision calls to us, appearing only for a moment, and then she slips away like a fish into the streams of the Milky Way. Every journey we make to find her will be worth it, but we will never hold her for longer than a moment. Except, maybe, in our death.

Olwen Fouéré is an actor and creative artist

The Song of Wandering Aengus

I went out to the hazel wood,

READ MORE

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 aflame,

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.