When You Are Old

W. B. Yeats(1865–1939)

The Rose, 1893

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 lookYour 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 fledAnd paced upon the mountains overheadAnd hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

From The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics (1892), taken from the facsimile transcribed on English Wikisource. An image caption from the scan is omitted. No emendation was made.

Public domainThis poem is in the public domain. You may read it, copy it, recite it and publish it without asking anyone.

About the poem

Yeats speaks to the woman he loves by imagining her already old: when you are old and grey, by the fire, take down this book, read it slowly, and remember the soft look your eyes once had. Many loved your beauty, with love false or true; but one alone loved «the pilgrim soul» in you, and loved the sorrows of your changing face.

The poem — addressed to Maud Gonne, Yeats's great unrequited love — sets apart those who wanted the beauty from the one who wanted the person. In the last stanza Love, now lost, flees to the mountains and hides his face among the stars: the sweet, sad warning of one who knows that his was the only love that would last.