W.B. Yeats (1865–1939). The Wild Swans at Coole. 1919.

19. The Hawk

‘CALL down the hawk from the air;

Let him be hooded or caged

Till the yellow eye has grown mild,

For larder and spit are bare,

The old cook enraged,

The scullion gone wild.’

‘I will not be clapped in a hood,

Nor a cage, nor alight upon wrist,

Now I have learnt to be proud

Hovering over the wood

In the broken mist

Or tumbling cloud.’

‘What tumbling cloud did you cleave,

Yellow-eyed hawk of the mind,

Last evening? that I, who had sat

Dumbfounded before a knave,

Should give to my friend

A pretence of wit.’