When You Are Old by William Butler Yeats
When You Are Old
William Butler YeatsWhen 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
MARGINALIA
One of the first few poems I’ve read and memorized.
ABOUT WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Born in Sandymount, Dublin, Ireland, on June 13, 1865, William Butler Yeats was the son of the well-known Irish painter, John Butler Yeats. His work after 1910 was strongly influenced by Ezra Pound, becoming more modern in its concision and imagery, but Yeats never abandoned his strict adherence to traditional verse forms. He had a life-long interest in mysticism and the occult, which was off-putting to some readers, but he remained uninhibited in advancing his idiosyncratic philosophy, and… (more)
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