"The Circus Animals' Desertion" was one of Yeats' later poems, published in 1939, the year he died. It expresses the speaker's inability to come up with new themes, and also focuses on his disillusionment with his previous works, which he feels were only circus-like performances. It traverses many of Yeats' previous works and passions, exploring both their content and their fanciful, dreamlike natures.
Ultimately, the poem finds the speaker leaving behind the trappings of fantasy and mythology that he used to love, facing true reality.
