Yeats’s Leda and the Swan and Hopkins’s The Windhover incorporate birds to represent superior beings. With the use of their superior powers, the birds initiate violent attacks on the weaker subjects of their domain. The falcon circles high then swiftly swoops to attack his prey while the swan, metaphorically Zeus, strikes then rapes Leda. The birds in both poems have divine characteristics; they are masters of their element and have complete control of …showed first 75 words of 785 total…

…showed last 75 words of 785 total…dominance over Leda and all females. Both the Kestrel and the Swan mesmerize their spectators. The narrator in The Windhover addresses his story “To Christ our Lord” in appreciation for allowing him to view the “morning’s minion kingdom of daylight’s dauphin”. In Leda, the author uses a swan as the metaphor because of its natural grace and beauty; but beautiful as these birds may be, we must not forget what power lurks inside.