"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.

--W. B. Yeats

Yeats to me is the Platonic poet - dreamy, truth-speaking, a litte sad, a little mad, not the story himself but the spinner of stories. I've loved this poem since I first read it, and I am still not sure what it means. It seems to contradict itself, or maybe I don't want to believe that in this poem's world, love didn't work out. It's so short, but different parts have meant things to me at different times. It seems like a poem of yearning, yearning by a bookish woman who has lived a full life. Love may have fled, but she's old, and grey, and not in pain, and untroubled enough to sit by a fire and dream and remember. I have never researched this poem, because I don't want to find out what Yeats meant by it or what other people think he meant by it. I just love it.