;Now must I these three praise - / Three women that have wrought / What joy is in my days” (CP 124). The comparison of his relationship with Maud Gonne to that of his wife, however, reveals something deeper in his poetry. Although with Maud Gonne Yeats experienced repeated rejection, she was his muse and his beloved. Gonne was unattainable and this tortured Yeats: “Why should I blame her that she filled my days / With misery” (CP 91). He often referred to her as a figure of mythology, usually Helen of Troy; thus creating a mysterious image. Her love was untouchable and her “beauty like a tightened bow, a kind / That is not natural”. On the other hand, Hyde-Lees did respond to his chivalry and gave him “a wife, partner in magical evocations, and hostess to his literary friends” (Kline 25). Of which, these being such uninspired things, Yeats could not get from Gonne. Gonne was placed on a pedestal for Yeats to admire and praise while Hyde-Lees became a wife and mother figure that was real and objective. This win/lose situation led to the question: “Does the imagination dwell the most / Upon a woman won or a woman lost?” (CP 195). Kline comments, “The woman lost fascinates the imagination as symbol of all that is lost or elusive or unrealized as the woman won cannot” (25). Therefore Gonne remained a mystery, while the woman won (Hyde-Lees) lent little to his creativity because there were no secrets to obsess over or pursue answers. The woman lost leaves the mind to remain unsatisfied and thus allows passion to thrive. Just as Maud was the perfect woman to Yeats, this “lost woman” grows into a metaphor of the ideal feminine image.The womanly figure and the romantic passion that surrounds her has been placed carefully within the collection The Wind Among the Reeds. In this section, Yeats uses real people and relationships as symbols, character, and i...
