The Moods

W. B. Yeats

Time drops in decay,
Like a candle burnt out,
And the mountains and the woods
Have their day, have their day;
What one in the rout
Of the fire-born moods
Has fallen away?

About this poem:
Literary scholar Richard Ellman writes in The Identity of Yeats that "Moods...are conspicuously, but not exclusively, emotional or temperamental; they differ from emotions in having form and, often, intellectual structure. Less fleeting than a mere wish, and less crystallized than a belief, a mood is suspended between fluidity and solidity. It can be tested only by the likelihood of its being experienced at all, and being so, by many people."

This poem appeared in Poem-A-Day on February 17, 2013. Browse the Poem-A-Day archive.

Poems by This Author

A Drinking Song by W. B. Yeats
Wine comes in at the mouth

A Prayer for my Daughter by W. B. Yeats
Once more the storm is howling, and half hid

Adam's Curse by W. B. Yeats
We sat together at one summer's end

Aedh wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by W. B. Yeats
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death by W. B. Yeats
I know that I shall meet my fate

Easter 1916 by W. B. Yeats
I have met them at close of day

Leda and the Swan by W. B. Yeats
A sudden blow: the great wings beating still

Never give all the heart by W. B. Yeats
Never give all the heart, for love

Sailing to Byzantium by W. B. Yeats
That is no country for old men. The young

The Balloon of the Mind by W. B. Yeats
Hands, do what you're bid

The Fisherman by W. B. Yeats
Although I can see him still

The Heart of the Woman by W. B. Yeats
O what to me the little room

The Lake Isle of Innisfree by W. B. Yeats
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree

The Magi by W. B. Yeats
Now as at all times I can see in the mind's eye

The Player Queen by W. B. Yeats
My mother dandled me and sang

The Second Coming by W. B. Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The Song of Wandering Aengus by W. B. Yeats
I went out to the hazel wood

The Sorrow of Love by W. B. Yeats
The quarrel of the sparrows in the eaves

The Stolen Child by W. B. Yeats
Where dips the rocky highland

The Tower by W. B. Yeats
What shall I do with this absurdity

The Wild Swans at Coole by W. B. Yeats
The trees are in their autumn beauty

The Young Man's Song by W. B. Yeats
I whispered,

When You are Old by W. B. Yeats
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

Who goes with Fergus? by W. B. Yeats
Who will go drive with Fergus now

The Moods

W. B. Yeats

Poems by This Author

Further Reading