‘Leda and the Swan’ is a sonnet considered one of the most perfect poems of W.B. Yeats. This artistic perfection, as Ellman has pointed out, was achieved by the poet not spontaneously but through at least six stages of revision and modification. It now stands as the final fusion of history myth and vision, the force and richness of which arise from the fact that the poet has succeeded in enclosing vast immensities within a small compass. The poem in one sweep, before we realize what has taken place, sets in motion a train of events that resulted in the destruction of the Trojan War, and the various events narrated by Homer in his epic, Illiad and Odessey.

by Dharmender Kumar

via https://poemanalysis.com/william-butler-yeats/leda-and-the-swan/