"When you are old"
This poem,dedicated to Maud Gonne, is an
example of the love poetry he wrote before35 years. The composition is full of
mythical imagery. The poet imagines her in front of a fire and he asks her to
read a book of his life to record the most important moments. The journey from
youth to old is briefly traced in a few phrases, suggesting the reality of
sorrow. The images are stark but flowing. The first
two lines suggest comfort in old age. Death is not a violent end but something
one 'falls into' as easily as sleep. The phrase 'full of
sleep' both carries the broad connotation of death, and describes the
sleeping that leads to dreaming. Reading, then, these words, she begins to
dream about the past and her own youth. The second stanza is descriptive of her
dream of the past. As a transition from the first stanza into the second, she
remembers her own 'soft look,' her eyes and 'their shadows
deep.' From this image of her youthful she is reminded of those who loved
her 'moments of glad grace' and her 'beauty with love false or
true.' Both 'grace' and 'beauty' are vague and
nondescript, yet these lines work to contrast those who loved these general
aspects of her with the 'one man' who loved her pilgrim soul. This
seems to suggest a love willing to journey into age as a companion with her,
still loving the 'sorrows' of her 'changing face' as she
shifts through the years. The deep shadows of her eyes, the vague 'soft
look' becomes more concrete as one imagines her 'changing face'
and the sorrows that come through experience. Yet, the one man who forsees in
her pilgrim soul the inevitability of growing old, and is still willing to love
her, is apparently rejected by her, possibly in favor of those who temporarily
love her 'grace' and 'beauty.
The dream continues as she bends 'down beside the glowing
bars' of the fire, perhaps seeking warmth or comfort. From this concrete image the dream again expands, and we
see Love, capitalized as an absolute, fleeing, effortlessly into mountainous
distances. His face hid 'amid a crowd of stars,' an abstract image
issuing from a more concrete description of loneliness and regret, speaks to
that which is beyond her reach. The dominant mood is one of serenity, of
melancholy and memory.
