Leda and the Swan, Yeats subjects the classical Greek myth to a personal interpretation of politics on Irish colonialism. The poem critiques the politics of Ireland by warping the classical myth of the conception of Helen of Troy, the founder of an empire, but also the Trojan War. The poem begins violently in action by 'a sudden blow', creating an effect of interruption despite no preceding scenes. Leda is introduced in the next line as 'a staggering girl' emphasizing the constant, frantic motion in which the poem is paced. Synecdoche is used to describe the rash interaction between Zeus the swan and Leda, naming tender and intimate parts of the action, including 'dark webs, thighs, nape, and bill'. It is not until the last line of the stanza that a cohesive image of action is fashioned. Furthermore, Yeats masters the traditional sonnet which commonly addresses romantic themes, but he corrupts the literary mode by depicting rape, a taboo act against the tradition of love-making. Yeats' artistic representation of the myth, alludes to the British seize on Ireland, portraying it as a violation of privacy that occurred before an orientation of the matter. He effectively engages established, traditional tales to draw conclusions upon similar violence in his personal context.
Although Yeats understood that all civilizations undergo periods of growth and decay, he was a firm believer in the cyclic nature of life. In 'The Second Coming', Yeats presents an argument of a new era in history, by exploring the relationship between creation and destruction. The gyre model conveys the idea that the end of one phase leads to the birth of its antithesis and so in the Second Coming, Yeats expresses his ideology of balance, in contradicting images of growth and decay. The opening stanza uses imagery derived from traditional ceremonies to symbolize a decaying society. 'The falcon cannot hear the falconer' is ironic as falconing is usually characterized by the master's tight control of the bird.
