Comment 11 of 11, added on June 20th, 2006 at 4:01 PM.

Did you know that the UK Band Keane has based one of their songs on this poem?It is very moving!

Diana Partridge from United Kingdom

Comment 9 of 11, added on March 24th, 2006 at 7:17 PM.

Do you know a pilot?A pilot of the war, it matters not which...dont you see? It is there that they live..live or die, balance it all..The days ahead will be waiting to live again or die...
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

Once having flown and loved flight...it is a consolation indeed an epitaph that he was only alive
in that balanced place....in flight...even if he knew it was death, before him....this is where his live both began and should end.

That was hs love his delight, that was his life and his death. There in flight.





John Moon from United States

Comment 7 of 11, added on October 2nd, 2005 at 7:38 PM.

I researched why William Butler Yeats wrote this poem and I found that it was under a request from a lady friend, Gregory, upon the death of her son in the British Air Force during World War I. The poem was meant to be his epitaph. The young man had no reason to fight in World War I. He was and Irish man, as stated in the title of the poem, and his country was not under attack. He fought in the war because he could and because he got a certain rush of adrenaline from fighting in combat. The first two lines of the poem just state that he knows he will die in this war and that he is flying. The next two point out the fact that he is not fighting this war for a purpose, but just because he can. He doesn’t hate the people that he is fighting against, but he doesn’t love the ones that he guards either because they are not his countrymen. In the following two lines he says that his country in Kiltartan Cross, which is where Lady Gregory lives. I think in the next two lines he is speaking in the minds of his countrymen and that if he helps them win the war they will not feel anymore happy. In the next two lines he is just saying that he was not forced to fight and that no one influenced him to do so. The following lines say that it was just a sudden impulse to come and fly. In the final four lines I think that he is stating that he did not see any reason to keep on living and that to die would not be a tragedy, but a way of equalizing his life with his death. Possibly his life was not filled with planned out things and just sudden impulses and he thought that he should die doing something of sudden impulse.

Jenna from United States

Comment 5 of 11, added on September 25th, 2005 at 10:03 PM.

I believe that what has been mentioned above is quite accurate.
Just in addition to that, I personally see the poem as being that of a romantic suicide in a sense. I say this because he's there by choice, as we see in the lines "Nor law, nor duty bade me fight.. A lonely impulse of delight Drove to this tumult in the clouds". He believes that change will come to his country, but, in the end, they will end up in a similar situation as seen in the quote, "no likely end could bring them los Or leave them happier than before."
He basically describes his life to date a waste of time, and doesn't see much change for the future (if he would have one). It seems he isn't truly bothered by the fact that he will die. It almost seems correct.


Alicia S from Canada

Comment 3 of 11, added on August 18th, 2005 at 11:03 AM.

I've always understood the line "No likely end will bring them loss or leave them happier than before." as a political comment -- it doesn't matter to the airman or his countrymen whether the British or the Germans prevail, because they'll still be ruled by outsiders.

John G. Carlton from United States