In Yeats' "The Circus Animal's Desertion," we find the speaker looking back over his poetic career, when his motivations for writing were more clear. He is searching in "vain" for a poetic theme. He tried to find one for "six weeks or so," but was not lucky.
He believes that now that he is "a broken man," he will have to settle for writing about his heart, which disappoints him because he used to be able to write elaborate poems with fun themes, like "circus animals" - former poetic creations of his which have now "deserted" him. The speaker thinks back on three specific works that were full of images that were "masterful" and questions their honesty. He saw them as complete.
All the great images that he had in his life have been stripped away from by the decay of age.
This is an excellent read and as we discussed in class, yes the speaker, probably Yeats himself, is looking back on his past works with a pensive questioning. I think the title really speaks to this poem's meaning, as Yeats has lost the things that once performed for him and made him into the legend that he has become, but once they are "gone" (no longer relevant) he finds himself alone and deserted, wondering how to recapture his animals/become inspired.
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