When I Am Old
I love Yeats poems because of their sound, their simultaneous bitterness and sentimentality, and how easy they are to memorise. :) Last Wednesday night and during Thursday I found myself imagining alternate lines for When You Are Old. You can choose at your peril which version you read first... I can't think of a way to decide! Except that his came first... waaaaaaay first.
When I am old, your green & blue & brown
Will take me back-to each I’ll give its share.
I’ll watch as all of time gathers there
And all of life comes into touch:
one syllable of sound.
How many loved your fleeting moments of peace,
Or dodged their own desires to keep you true;
But some of us loved the scarlet soul in you,
And stoked your ancient fires, convinced:
“At this, we shall be free!”
Who now, bending down beside the iron bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how life fled;
And took the cool cloth from your forehead,
And hid their faces in it
from the singing of the stars.
(When I Am Old, 9 March 2006)
When I am old, your green & blue & brown
Will take me back-to each I’ll give its share.
I’ll watch as all of time gathers there
And all of life comes into touch:
one syllable of sound.
How many loved your fleeting moments of peace,
Or dodged their own desires to keep you true;
But some of us loved the scarlet soul in you,
And stoked your ancient fires, convinced:
“At this, we shall be free!”
Who now, bending down beside the iron bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how life fled;
And took the cool cloth from your forehead,
And hid their faces in it
from the singing of the stars.
(When I Am Old, 9 March 2006)