When You Are Old

by W.B. Yeats

Genres: Poetry

Paperback

Published November 5, 2015

About the author

William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and dramatist, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years Yeats served as an Irish Senator for two terms. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival, and along with Lady Gregory and Edward Martyn founded the Abbey Theatre, serving as its chief during its early years. In 1923 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for what the Nobel Committee described as "inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation." He was the first Irishman so honored. Yeats is generally considered one of the few writers who completed their greatest works after being awarded the Nobel Prize; such works include The Tower (1928) and The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1929).

Yeats was born and educated in Dublin but spent his childhood in County Sligo. He studied poetry in his youth, and from an early age was fascinated by both Irish legends and the occult. Those topics feature in the first phase of his work, which lasted roughly until the turn of the century. His earliest volume of verse was published in 1889, and those slow paced and lyrical poems display debts to Edmund Spenser and Percy Bysshe Shelley, as well as to the Pre-Raphaelite poets. From 1900, Yeats' poetry grew more physical and realistic. He largely renounced the transcendental beliefs of his youth, though he remained preoccupied with physical and spiritual masks, as well as with cyclical theories of life.
--from Wikipedia

Reviews

[Olivia Nahmias · Rating 4 out of 5]

*4 stars*
I listened to this read by Cillian Murphy and it was rather lovely.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

The poet pictures a gorgeous woman, now grown old, prevailing in a world of dejected memories. Every sweet memory of her’s are of the days when her eyes were indulgent and unfathomable and her body nimble and lithe, when there were many who worshipped her.

Now, regrettably, love has absconded with her beauty. She sits near a fire, unaccompanied, drowsy, thinking of the past that is gone for all time.

The poet talks to his darling who is now young, and envisages what she would be when she has put on years. Then, when years bow her down, she will perchance some day recall how men once loved her for her looks, for her indulgent eyes which had ‘shadows deep’, for her cheerful elegance.

Then she shall feel depressed and shall reminisce with compunction, how love has disappeared into the haze.

One individual, ostensibly the poet, alone loved not her peripheral charisma, but her "pilgrim soul."

The poem exemplifies the universal idea of the impermanence of love. And, more than anything, this poem captures the poet's remorse, his languor and his unhappiness.

The whole text is imbued with a profound sense of misery and stimulates a sensation of despair.

[Del Trigo · Rating 5 out of 5]

When You are Old (English)


When you are old and gray 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 crown of stars.

[Andy Hickman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yeats's "When You Are Old"
When You Are Old – (4/5) Without reading commentaries it would seem a love letter to the widow he would leave behind.
Romantic and emotive with grief and love. ****
“But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you..”

[Britanny · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve never clicked on a video faster than seeing the title “When You Are Old - W. B. Yeats read by Cillian Murphy”…do not threaten me with a good time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEHjB....