Essay -- Wrath of a Lover Scorned: An Analysis of a Not-Love Poem

In the poem "When You Are Old" by William Butler Yeats, love is a major theme. However, it is by no means a love poem. The poem describes a future in which the subject, the poet's beloved, reminisces about her past relationship with the poet, a relationship that is no more. Even though its opening lines relay a gentle, soothing mood, this sense of security is quickly upset, as the tone becomes labored and remorseful. The voice of the lover, too, diverges from the conventions of love poetry. There are few traces of the amorous, doting suitor. Instead of celebrating his beloved, the poet predicts for her a lonely future filled with regrets. The effect is that of a warning: since the future has yet to arrive, his beloved ought to examine her choices now, before it is too late.

The first stanza of the poem seems to paint a pleasant enough picture. The poet addresses his beloved in a future he imagines, where the beloved is "full of sleep / And nodding by the fire". The words in this stanza lend it a dreamy, warm quality: "sleep", "fire", "slowly", "dream" and "shadows deep". However, the phrase "old and grey" is already indicative of less-than-innocent intentions on the poet's part. These unembellished, coarse adjectives are clearly not intended to flatter his beloved. The fact that Yeats situates them among others which evoke warmth and security directs attention to the inconsistency they create, as an indication of the shift in tone that is to come.

The second stanza is, similarly, only deceptively harmless. The first couplet at first glance appears to constitute a celebration of the general adoration which the beloved received: "How many loved your moments of glad grace / And loved your beauty with love false or true". However, the word "false" subverts the initial celebratory vein of the couplet. A closer reading of the first line shows that the appreciation of her grace was not categorical: only "moments" of her grace were loved by others. The second couplet, then, establishes a stark contrast between the affections of others and of those of "one man", ostensibly, the implied poet. He loves "the pilgrim soul in you,  / And loved the sorrows…" The poet's love for her reaches beyond her appearances, and focuses on the internal. It is made all the more powerful because the love of others is unworthy.

Yeats' word choice continues to affect the tone of the poem. The words "love" and its derivative "loved" appear in the poem six times, five of which are in the second stanza alone. Yeats uses this word for rhetorical ends. It appears three times in the first couplet, a description of false love, and only twice in the second, a description of sincere love on the poet's part. The poet, through this word choice, tempers his earnest affection with an implicit warning regarding the appearance of love: the ubiquity of its utterance is no guarantee of its sincerity.

The final stanza carries a much more overtly negative tone. Yeats continues the image from the first stanza. Here, however, the previously warm fire becomes "glowing bars", instilling a feeling of coldness, of dying down. The words "murmur" and "sadly" enhance this, creating a sense of remorse. This remorse is a product of "how Love fled / And paced … / And hid his face …". The beloved has shamed and angered a personified Love with the choices she has made in life- it is implied that she preferred the love of others over that of the "one man" from the second stanza. The image of the beloved "bending down" to tend to the fire contributes to the heaviness of the burden that is the shame of forsaking true love.

Throughout the poem, the implied poet subtly established himself as a dominant, influential force. The entire poem is structured as a prophecy of sorts. It predicts a future for his beloved- "when you are old and grey and full of sleep". Although he does not claim prophetic abilities outright, the grammar implies that the poet is omniscient, and as such is powerful, a force to be revered. This becomes more profound as the grammar turns from the simple future ("when you are old") to the imperative- "take down this book, / And slowly read, and dream…" In the second stanza he orders her to dream of the inaptitude of others, and of his own worthy love. Thus, not only does he predict her future actions, but has the gall- or power- to command her very thoughts. 

By the second stanza, the implied poet has established his dominance, and has exerted his influence through his implicit prescient capabilities. This makes the third stanza all the more powerful in its effect. The darkness of the mood combines with the prophetic nature of the lines to create the effect of a warning. Here the subject of the poem, the beloved, receives a very clear image: herself, old and grey, alone in a cold room in a future full of regret. This becomes due to the poet's dominance not a suggestion, but rather an establishment of fact. The implied poet implies that if she were to reject the love of that one man who loved her pilgrim soul, a certain gloom awaits her.

As unattached readers, we cannot know whether the implied poet has given up on the pursuit of his beloved. If he still hopes to win her, the poem reads like a warning. It is a demand that she respond to his affections and accept him, for his love is true and worthwhile and that of others, though externally convincing, is not necessarily sincere. If he has abandoned his pursuit of her, then the poem acts as a scathing rebuke, painting an image of the dreary future she is to face without him. Either way, the poem is a powerful poem of love- but of love's wrath, and not of its benevolence.

Image by Muhmed Al-Bank