Love

A Deep-Sworn Vow

by W. B. Yeats 1865–1939

From The Wild Swans at Coole (1919)

LoveTime & Brevity

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.

✦ ✦ ✦

Others have come between the poet and his beloved, but 'when I have looked in a stranger's face, / Suddenly I meet your face'. Six lines.

MLA

Yeats, W. B. “A Deep-Sworn Vow.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/yeats/47/.

Chicago

Yeats, W. B. “A Deep-Sworn Vow.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/yeats/47/.

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