The poem
What lively lad most pleasured me Of all that with me lay? I answer that I gave my soul And loved in misery, But had great pleasure with a lad That I loved bodily.
Flinging from his arms I laughed To think his passion such He fancied that I gave a soul Did but our bodies touch, And laughed upon his breast to think Beast gave beast as much.
I gave what other women gave That stepped out of their clothes. But when this soul, its body off, Naked to naked goes, He it has found shall find therein What none other knows,
And give his own and take his own And rule in his own right; And though it loved in misery Close and cling so tight, There's not a bird of day that dare Extinguish that delight.
I just learned of WB Yeats today. I found this site by researching some of his work ... Will Anchor, I just read your comment, then re-read the poem. No wonder I was confused by it. I thought he had a love for a woman named Maud Gonne, not a love for men (or boys)!!! I agree with you Will, 100 %!!! By WB Yeats writing a poem of this nature, one can only assume that he definitely had a homosexual experience. Based on how he wrote of the enticing pleasure he had from the experience, it most likely wasn't his one and only sexual encounter with another male ... ; 0
The poem comes from a sequence called 'A Woman Young and Old', and it is to be understood that a woman is speaking in the poem. That should be obvious in any case from the third stanza when the speaker says, 'I gave what OTHER women give...'
It's amazing how people don't know how to "read" poetry. For one, how about doing some research on the poem before smashing the poet. I write poetry myself, and I've writen in the voice of a man, but that doesn't mean I'm a lesbian. A lot of poets do this. And like Leo said, Yeats tells us in the poem that he is speaking as a woman, and that the poem is from a collection of poems writen with a female narrator.