golden apples of the sun

The problem with William Butler Yeats is that nothing ever quite compares to "Sailing to Byzantium", but that does not mean I do not love his other stuff. (Actually, it occurred to me while I was browsing that not everyone may have been forced to memorize "The Second Coming" in secondary school, and maybe it isn't quite as widely known as I'd thought.) I am not really in the mood for "The Second Coming" today, however.

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

~W.B. Yeats (1865-1939), "The Song of Wandering Aengus", from The Wind Among the Reeds, 1899.