When You Are Old-Yeats

The second verse of this poem was read at my wedding.

When You are Old
by W. B. Yeats

When 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.

An Irish Poet born in 1865 Yeats was strongly influenced by Irish myth and folklore. This poem is believed to be for Yeats’ unrequited love, Maud Gonne, the Irish revolutionary. He was also influenced by Irish politics and the modern poet Ezra Pound, but Yeats continued to write in 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. He was appointed as an Irish Free State Senator in 1922. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1923 and died in 1939 at the age of 73.

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/117

Yeats once lived in the London apartment where Sylvia Plath killed herself.