When You Are Old

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1893

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Symbols & Motifs

Fire and Light

The poem opens with the image of an older person, often perceived as a woman, “nodding by the fire” (Line 2). The person is described as “old and grey and full of sleep” (Line 1). “Fire” in this context represents the woman’s former life, which she knows has passed and is soon burning out. Later in the poem, the woman bends “down beside the glowing bars” (Line 10) to stoke this fire with the memory of her lover. The “glowing bars” represent the woman’s former life and her youthfulness, which passed quickly. The poem concludes with Love hiding “his face amid a crowd of stars” (Line 12). Stars are a fixed point of light. “Stars” (Line 12) is the poem’s final word, with its placement representing the plane beyond life that awaits the woman after her life ends.

Aging

Aging and life’s brevity are the primary motifs in not only “When You Are Old,” but also many of Yeats’s other poems. The poem establishes the motif of aging from its beginning, opening with the image of a person who is “old and grey and full of sleep” (Line 1). Words and phrases like “dream” (Line 3), “shadows” (Line 4), and “changing face” (Line 8) facilitate this motif. The speaker also transitions from the present tense to the past tense between lines 4 and 5: “Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; / How many loved your moments of glad grace.” This shift facilitates the tones of longing, regret, and acknowledgement in the poem. The shift also creates the sense of time quickly passing. The aging process culminates in the speaker’s physical description of the poem’s addressee. They describe the addressee as having “sorrows” (Line 8) in their “changing face” (Line 8). The speaker implies that the poem’s addressee has had a difficult life, and its ravages reveal themselves in the addressee’s expressions and have even physically manifested.

Faces

The word “face” appears twice in the poem, first in line 8 and again in line 12. In line 8, the speaker describes the face as “changing” (Line 8) ravaged by “sorrows” (Line 8). In previous lines, the speaker incorporates images of objects associated with the face, such as “eyes” (Line 4) which harbor “shadows” (Line 4). In social situations, a person’s face is one of the first impressions others have of that person. Facial expressions are also important to communication, and they often reveal more about what a person is thinking than what they are actually saying. By focusing on the beloved’s face, the speaker implies that it reveals more about how the beloved truly feels regarding the past and the speaker’s unrequited love than the beloved allows others to know.

At the poem’s conclusion, the speaker describes the face as not the face of the poem’s addressee, but of personified Love: “And his face hid amid a crowd of stars” (Line 12). The speaker’s description of Love hiding its face represents the speaker’s perceptions of the beloved’s own hiding of affection. The hidden face can also represent the shame the beloved feels at not accepting the speaker’s intentions.