The Wind Among the Reeds by W. B. Yeats: Summary in 30 Seconds : Free Summarizer

The Wind Among the Reeds

W. B. Yeats · poetry collection, 1899·53 min in the original·original at Project Gutenberg

The 30‑second version53 min → 50 sec

The Sidhe ride between you and your own hand In The Hosting of the Sidhe, Caolte and Niamh ride between night and day calling "Away, come away," and Yeats writes: "We come between him and the deed of his hand, We come between him and the hope of his heart."
A fisherman nets nothing but her absence In Breasal the Fisherman, the speaker tells a vanished woman: "The people of coming days will know About the casting out of my net," though the net catches only her memory.
A bride is stolen back by the dead In The Host of the Air, Bridget is led away from a dance by old men playing cards, and O'Driscoll wakes to find "the bread and the wine had a doom, for these were the host of the air."
His love poem is a wager against her critics In Aedh Thinks of Those Who Have Spoken Evil of His Beloved, he writes: "I made it out of a mouthful of air, Their children's children shall say they have lied," betting six lines against the gossips.
He gives her his dreams instead of heaven In Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven, the speaker offers embroidered cloths of "night and light and the half light," then admits: "I, being poor, have only my dreams," and asks her to tread softly.
He becomes tree, rush, and man, losing her every time The closing poem, Mongan Thinks of His Past Greatness, has the speaker recall being a hazel tree, then "a rush that horses tread," then a man, "a hater of the wind," still denied the one woman he wants.

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•Why it earns a slot

Why it earns a slot: Yeats writes every love poem through an invented mask, Aedh, Michael Robartes, Hanrahan, so the ache stays mythic instead of confessional, and he appends his own notes at the back explaining the Sidhe, Niamh, and Knocknarea by name.

Yeats hides his 1899 love poems behind masks named Aedh and Michael Robartes, wooing women who dissolve into wind, tide, and dream.

This distillation is written from the freely available original, which is always the better read when you have the time: Project Gutenberg.

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The Wind Among the Reeds

•Why it earns a slot

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