The poem
When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars, Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled And paced upon the mountains overhead And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
Now I am in my 78th year, I find this poem comforting, Yeats wrote it from "The deep hearts core", what puzzles me though is "How love fled" he seems to have gone off the track here. I hope my husband still loves the sorrows of my changing face.
Yvonne, I believe you are misunderstanding his intent in this poem. He's writing the poem to a woman that he loved who didn't love him back - he's saying, one day, when you're old, you'll think back and regret - losing the only one who truly loved you.
how does this poem reflect history?
I read this poem on my poem course. after reading, i just thought that woman in the poem was so lucky. there was a man loved her so long and so deep, i admire her very much. Even though this is a sad poem ,the auther could not get the woman, he still loved her so much. love is a wonderful thing, though we may hurt ourselves. Experience itself is so precious that we still very happy when we look back on the past.
How does the image pattern in the poem "When You Are Old" relate to the meaning of the poem?
Do you think Marxism would apply to this poem? It seems as if the author thinks the best part of her life has already past and all she can do now is reflect as if her life was already dead and can do nothing about it. It's as if he is implying that the elderly have no purpose besides mourning over thier lost youth and regrets.
The guy was young and it was one of his Romantic poems to the woman that he really loved, but I did not find anything on whether she loved did not love him back. I'm totaly confused, why the young poet would look into the future when everybody is old and everything what's left is just memories. Was he pessimistic? I cannot say that. Did he not know how to enjoy life at the moment? May be, but I d
A beautiful poem. It was indeed written for Maud Gonne, the love of his life.
It was based on an earlier poem by Peirre de Ronsard, a French poet. Yeats changes the effect of the poem by placing the blame for the loss of his love for her not on the woman, but on the fickle Fates. Notice how Love FLEES and HIDES above, but does not end. Love, and all emotions, are above the worldly sphere of humans. We cannot truly control them, and he does not want to blame her for the day when he stopped loving her, because it was not something he could control.
But he was very bitter about it and thought she might feel guilty, anyway.
when i raed de novel it smelt like farting
hi this poem was sad and I didn't like it!!!!!!!!!!!!