Yet another wonderful poem from Yeats makes it into the top 100 Irish poems list. This one comes in a number 56.
To a Child Dancing in the Wind is a short but powerful poem. It talks about a child dancing on a shore, oblivious to what is happening around them. The main message seems to be how we can all be so careless and carefree when we are young, but as we age, things like love and life happen.
This is particularly evident when he says, “What need have you to dread”.
Now let’s get to this lovely Irish poem.
To A Child Dancing In The Wind
Dance there upon the shore;
What need have you to care
For wind or water’s roar?
And tumble out your hair
That the salt drops have wet;
Being young you have not known
The fool’s triumph, nor yet
Love lost as soon as won,
Nor the best labourer dead
And all the sheaves to bind.
What need have you to dread
The monstrous crying of wind!
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
What did you think of the poem To a Child Dancing in the Wind? Comment below.