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This poem — published in 1899 — was written by the Irish poet W. B. Yeats for Maud Gonne, the woman he loved for most of his life. He proposed marriage to her several times, but each time, she rejected him. She married someone else and later, as a widow, even rejected Yeats one final time. She claimed that a poet shouldn’t marry as it would stop his creativity. This context gives the poem a sadder tone, when we learn that the poet’s love was unrequited, and his dreams were indeed trodden on.

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