{
 "id": "w-b-yeats/broken-dreams",
 "title": "Broken Dreams",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "W. B. Yeats",
 "poet_slug": "w-b-yeats",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Wild Swans at Coole",
 "book_slug": "the-wild-swans-at-coole",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 13,
 "container": "The Wild Swans at Coole",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1917,
  "venue": "The Wild Swans at Coole (1917)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/wildswansatcoole00yeatrich"
  ]
 },
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  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
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   "https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Dublin_University_Review/fE8wAQAAMAAJ",
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   "https://www.google.ie/books/edition/The_Dublin_University_Review/TFAwAQAAMAAJ",
   "https://www.google.ie/books/edition/The_Irish_Monthly/EMoaAAAAYAAJ",
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  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-21"
 },
 "stats": {
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  "n_stanzas": 5,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "There is grey in your hair.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Young men no longer suddenly catch their breath",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When you are passing;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But maybe some old gaffer mutters a blessing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Because it was your prayer",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Recovered him upon the bed of death.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For your sole sake⁠—that all heart’s ache have known,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And given to others all heart’s ache,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From meagre girlhood’s putting on",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Burdensome beauty⁠—for your sole sake",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Heaven has put away the stroke of her doom,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So great her portion in that peace you make",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By merely walking in a room.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Your beauty can but leave among us",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Vague memories, nothing but memories.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A young man when the old men are done talking",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will say to an old man, “Tell me of that lady",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The poet stubborn with his passion sang us",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When age might well have chilled his blood.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Vague memories, nothing but memories,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But in the grave all, all, shall be renewed.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The certainty that I shall see that lady",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Leaning or standing or walking",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the first loveliness of womanhood,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And with the fervour of my youthful eyes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Has set me muttering like a fool.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You are more beautiful than any one",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And yet your body had a flaw:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your small hands were not beautiful,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I am afraid that you will run",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And paddle to the wrist",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In that mysterious, always brimming lake",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where those that have obeyed the holy law",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Paddle and are perfect; leave unchanged",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The hands that I have kissed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For old sakes’ sake.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The last stroke of midnight dies.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All day in the one chair",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From dream to dream and rhyme to rhyme I have ranged",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In rambling talk with an image of air:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Vague memories, nothing but memories.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}