When You Are Old

I have always liked poetry because it sounded pretty, it rhymed, and poems many times included words that I had to look up because I didn’t know what they meant. It wasn’t until this class that I’m learning how to appreciate poetry and what to look for when I’m reading a poem. I’ve also learned that every writer has his own style, and it is influenced by his experiences in life; where he was at the moment he wrote the poem, where he comes from, what social class he belonged at the moment they wrote the poem, his marriage statues etc. William Butler Yeats was a very interesting 20th century writer. He used allusive imagery and large symbolic structures in his writings. Most of his poems in this book contained two or more paragraphs, each with four or more lines and were very well structured. His tone in the poem When You Are Old is kind of dismal. This poem talks about life in general, how when you were young, “many loved your moments of glad and grace,” (Yeats 1703), and when you are old, “love fled and paced upon the mountains overhead and hid his face amid a crowd of stars.” (Yeats 1703). I think the first example makes the comparison that when you are young, you can do many different things; like having friends, go out and everyone likes you because you don’t depend on them. On the other hand, when you are old, even your own family abandons you because they don’t want to take care of an old person.