"Leda and the Swan" was written by William Butler Yeats in 1924. It is a widely
             anthologized piece with several interpretations. The most commonly accepted
             version tells a tale of Zeus in the form of a swan coming to earth and
             impregnating the youthful Leda. As a result of this intercourse, Leda produces
             an egg which brought forth the beautiful Helen of Troy.
             In a less literal translation, it is written up as "the manifestation of Yeats'
             unrequited love from Maud Gonne" (Holstad). Miss Gonne is a fellow mystic,
             member of the "Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn." A system wherein
             members believed that physical connection lessons the creativity of the soul and
             thereby only interacts with Yeats on a metaphysical plain during dreams or
             meditation has driven him to vent his human frustration in a literary
             Yeats cleanses himself of these emotions, in the form of a traditional
             Italian Sonnet. A poem of Fourteen lines consisting of two stanzas, one Octave,
             and one sestet, allowing for a repetitive ABAB rhyme scheme. It also has multiple
             allusions to Greek Mythology largely in part to the fact that it is written
             about Zeus, lord of the Greek gods. Yet that is not it's the only mention of
             said mythology, he also mentions Helen of Troy, Agamemnon, and his traitorous wife
             who goes un-named but dearly mentioned in his line "The broken wall, the burning roof
             and tower, and Agamemnon dead." -(Kennedy)
             The imagery of the poem helps to depict the two beings by illustrating
             the concrete form of Leda against the more abstract shape of the swan.
             (Hargrove) Where in Leda is spoken of throughout the poem as "her
             thighs", "her nape", "her helpless breasts" as the Swan is never literally called
             Zeus or even a swan is merely mentioned as "great wings" "dark webs" "white
             rush" and "feathered glory". leaving a much fainter visual image of the attacker.
             Yeats uses several devices to show the b...