The ideas include; unrequited love, chaos and change, and death. (Stanza 2) How many people were affected positively by your happy and graceful moments, and either falsely or truly loved your beauty? Therefore, if interpreted in this light we could say that Yeats is being playful and joking a little at the seriousness of the topic, whilst at the same time wanting to make the intensity of his feelings known. When you are old and grey and full of sleep. When You Are Old reveals the reality of passing time, the brevity of life, and the importance of love. https://scrbbly.teachable.com/p/cie-a-level-poetry-anthology, Forest of Europe – Derek Walcott – Poem Analysis, The Death Bed – Siegfried Sassoon Poem Analysis, Example answer for English Language Paper 2, Question 2, English Language Paper 2 (AQA GCSE) – How to Approach It. These cookies do not store any personal information. The speaker wants this woman to regret losing him, when she is old and her beauty has faded. Love, then, is personified in the form of the author himself. The speaker uses a wistful tone to speak nostalgically about the past. The essay will utilize quotes from the poems as evidence that the poems were used in the analysis The description of her “bending down beside the glowing bars” reminds the readers that she is picturing herself as an old woman sitting by the fire, reading a book written by the speaker. When you’re old and your hair has turned grey and you’re tired, starting to sleep as you sit by the fire, take a look at this book (the book that has this poem in it), and read slowly, dreaming of the soft look that your eyes used to have their deep shadows. It leaves me with a feeling of contentment, just thinking that someone with a little age, and all alone can look back upon her life and keep smiling until it is her time to be united with her soul-mate. WB Yeats was an Irish poet, he published this poem in his second collection ‘The Rose’ (1893).

She is often called ‘the muse of WB Yeats’ among other titles, for the deep impact she had on his poetry. Decide for yourself whether it’s clever, or a little cruel!
He asks her to remember, when she is old, that one person, namely himself, loved the soul within her.


He would have “loved the sorrows of [her] changing face”. It also has the same central concept — the speaker says to the subject that when she is old, sitting by the fire and spinning wool, she will remember that long ago Ronsard (the poet) wrote about her. When you are old and gray and full of sleep The login page will open in a new tab. In contrast, the speaker loves the ‘soul’ and ‘sorrows’ of the woman, he connects to her even in times of difficulty and sadness. Perhaps she did regret it when she was old, perhaps not.

It is possible that the speaker (likely Yeats himself) feels this way about the woman. We respect your privacy and take protecting it seriously. And nodding by the fire, take down this book, Please continue to help us support the fight against dementia.

Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site! This analysis is tailored towards GCSE, IGCSE, and A-Level students (CIE / Cambridge, WJEC / Eduqas, OCR, AQA, CCEA, etc) but it is suitable for anyone studying the poem at any level. How many loved your moments of glad grace,

Abstract And paced upon the mountains overhead, Subscribe to our mailing list to get the latest and greatest poetry updates. When You Are Old - When you are old and grey and full of sleep, ... William Butler Yeats, widely considered one of the greatest poets of the English language, received the 1923 Nobel Prize for Literature. The messages that Yeats expresses in Sailing are, that the soul wants to leave body when it's about time to, simply glance back out their window to check. Analysis of William Butler Yeats' Poems; When You Are Old, The Lake Isle of Innisfree, The Wild Swans at Coole, The Second Coming and Sailing to Byzantium In many poems, short stories, plays, television shows and novels an author usually deals with a main idea in each of their works. ABBA rhyme scheme — the stanzas have an ABBA rhyme to them, which creates three enclosed rhymed quatrains (four-line stanzas). We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. Introduction Rather, she went on to marry a man, John McBride. Finally, after continual rejection, Love “hid his face amid a crowd of stars”. Yeats gives love a face hidden in the stars.

Basically, Yeats is showing that as the woman gets older, she is alone, but she does not have to be lonely. 06 June 2016. Yet this is disrupted by the beginning and end lines of each stanza, which gives the feeling of jilted or disruption in the love. Every single person that visits PoemAnalysis.com has helped contribute, so thank you for your support.