WBY's When You Are Old

There are many ways to interpret the words of a poet. But for me, one resounding message emanates from William Butler Yeats’ poem “When You Are Old.” In my opinion, the story that this poem tells is one of unrequited love. The speaker’s words seem to be a final address to the woman he loved deeply and truly with no reciprocation on her part. This poem unveils his true feelings for her and leaves her with a piece of advice, a warning of sorts, to chew on.

I get the impression that the speaker is not significant at all in the mind of the woman being addressed but that this confrontation is meant to leave a big impression on her. I also got the sensation that the speaker is criticizing the woman’s disregard for meaningful relationships in favor of a shallow existence in which she effortlessly captivates men with her beauty. The way that the speaker uses the past tense of the word love in the second stanza reinforces my theory. The way that he says “but one man loved” implies that the speaker has decided to stop waiting for her. The way that he says he, unlike other men, loves her changing i.e. aging face is a warning to her that if she does not change her ways, she will end up old and lonely with a photo album of her beautiful youth as her only comfort.

In the second stanza, the speaker talks about other men loving her beauty with “false” love as opposed to his true love of “the pilgrim soul in [her]” and “the sorrows of her changing face.”
The first and the last stanzas of this poem describe the speaker’s prediction of the woman’s life as an elderly woman. The words in the first stanza convey the image of an old woman sitting in solitude, looking at old photos of herself and reminiscing about her fleeting youth and the simple lifestyle that came with it. Then, in the last stanza the speaker evokes the feeling of sadness that the woman will be faced with when her beauty and the attention she receives because of it all vanish. I interpreted the last stanza as a metaphorical way of saying that because of the woman’s attitude, both her false and true admirers will eventually leave her (“love fled and paced upon the mountains overhead”). Their love will then be out of reach to her and her only hope is to wish upon the stars for its return (“[love] hid his face amid a crowd of stars”).

“When You Are Old” is written into three stanzas. The first and third stanzas talk about the woman’s life when she is old. The second stanza talks about her youth. The way in which it was written reminds me of the photo album in the woman’s hands. The first and third stanzas are like the covers of the album, old and dusty and aging along with the woman. However, in between those two covers lies a woman eternally frozen in time as young and beautiful as ever—the second stanza.

The poem is written with very delicate words that sound pretty when spoken—dream, soft, glad grace, love, beauty, soul, glowing, stars. There is no easy way to describe it but these words just sound pretty and young. They are so sweet that at first glance the poem sounds like a love letter from a loving devoted husband to his wife of fifty years. However, with a closer look, the smooth, flowing words cannot disguise what I truly believe is a fed up man’s final speech to a woman who may never realize the extent of what she is losing.

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