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?
- William Butler Yeats, 1924.