Literary Analysis Week13 William Butler Yeats

One specific poem I liked by Yeats is "When You Are Old," on page 522. Although it's short, I love the flow of every line, and I like the rhyming it has - the first and fourth lines, and second and third lines, each rhyme. And although this poem essentially talks about getting old, I think there's more to it than that. Yes, we all get old; that's part of life. But there is also beauty in getting old. We get more lines in our face, we get laugh lines, and that gives character to each and every person. We all also have memories, from our childhood, from growing up, of our friends and family; and we also have our own thoughts towards getting old and dying. 

The poem goes,

"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 crowd of stars."

I've noticed that as we get older, we are more tired, "full of sleep." We can sit by the fire and try to start reading a book, but the soft shadows from the fire and the warmth it gives, only makes us more vulnerable to sleep and the lure of sweet dreams. In our sleep state, we remember how many of our "loved moments of glad grace," and how we "loved your beauty with love false or true." The last stanza, at least how I read it, seems as though the narrator is taking about death. What exactly could the glowing bars be or mean? The stanza goes on to say how love has fled and is "upon the mountains overhead/And hid his face amid a crowd of stars," as if saying that their soul has fled and is flying free amongst the mountains overhead, making its way up to the crowd of stars above our heads. Even though this is a little sad, maybe even depressing to some, I find the flow and rhythm of the lines are easily read, and have deeper meaning.