Love
Poetry Home
When You Are
Old
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
When
you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding
by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly
read, and dream of the soft look
Your 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 fled
And paced
upon the mountains overhead
And hid his
face amid a crowd of stars.
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