A Deep-Sworn Vow: A Poem by W B Yeats

A very short poem that uses metrical devices to good effect

“A Deep-Sworn Vow” is a short (six lines long) poem by William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) that was included in his 1919 collection “The Wild Swans at Coole”.

The poem

Others because you did not keep
That deep-sworn vow have been friends of mine;
Yet always when I look death in the face,
When I clamber to the heights of sleep,
Or when I grow excited with wine,
Suddenly I meet your face.

Discussion

The poem concerns the poet’s feelings about a love affair that was broken off many years before, since when other relationships have taken its place. There is a contrast between two states of mind, the conscious state that has forgotten the loved one and the unconscious state that refuses to do so. An indelible image of that person remains imprinted somewhere deep within and, when the occasion so demands, that image is brought back “suddenly” from the unconscious to the conscious mind.

Although this is a very short poem, there is still room for movement within it and it is this movement that gives it its strength. The opening…