When You Are Old

Question 1

Summary of this poem

Answer 1

Highlights the unrequited love and failed relationship between the speaker and his former lover, Maud Gonne.
Speaker describes how the subject of the poem will grow old with the passage of time and regret not being with him.

Question 2

Context of this poem

Answer 2

Yeats love for MG continued to be reflected in his poems in spite that she was married to another Irishman and she had still rejected his advanced even after they separated.

Question 3

What does the title of this poem mean?

Answer 3

That when Maud Gonne has grown old she will truly regret having lost the one person who loved her soul.

Question 4

Technique in stanza 1

Answer 4

Word choice of the verb ‘dream’ is important in underlining the reality of time passing and with it not just physical beauty, youthful energy but also missed opportunity.

Question 5

Technique in stanza 2

Answer 5

‘The sorrows of your changing face’, he asserts his love will have endured through the inevitable physical changes, occasioned by the passage of time and MG’s share of life’s tragedies - a constant, profound love, unaffected by the aging process.

Question 6

Technique in stanza 3

Answer 6

‘Love’ is personified by the use of a capital L - the suggestion is it will have endured even beyond WBY’s death; his unchanging love is portrayed through the image of a restless, wandering soul of an unrequited lover

Question 7

Structure and tone of this poem

Answer 7

3 stanzas of 4 lines with regular rhyme scheme and basic iambic pentameter rhythm, this produces very smooth, flowing, constant rendition and an earnest, tender, melancholic tone.
Tone is initially romantic in the first stanza, but changes to one of regret and ly by the end.

Question 8

Themes

Answer 8

Love
Memory
Aging
Youth
Regret