The Hawk
W. B. Yeats


Call down the hawk form the air—
Let him be hooded or caged
Till the yellow eye has grown mild.
For larder and spit are bare,
The old cook enraged,
The scullion gone wild.

I will not be clapped in a hood,
Nor a cage, nor alight upon wrist,
Now I have learnt to be proud
Hovering over the wood
In the broken mist
Or tumbling cloud.

What tumbling cloud did you cleave,
Yellow-eyed hawk of the mind,
Last evening, that I, who had sat
Dumbfounded before a knave
Should give to my friend
A pretence of wit?