J and I were chatting about W.B Yeats poetry recently. Her favorite is the big crowd pleaser and so is mine - maybe slightly different crowds but there is a broad appeal for Yeats poem we each like most. Interestingly enough, our first introduction to the poem in question happened in high school. Maybe timing matters here. We were hit hard by what we read and the impression remained - mine for decades, her for much less (as of now). I love reading The Second Coming too - the magic never fades but when I do, I read it as something written for the world and not just for me. I am just one among millions who have been moved by those words.
When You Are Old for me reads as if it was addressed to my soul. I cannot speak for how it makes anyone else feel but the effect on me is very deeply personal - from the first reading to this day. As time passed in my life, the face of relationships changed and along with it my conception of love (and capacity for it), the poem came to hold a mirror to what I was not able to see on my own. It was the prism through which I saw my mistakes and had a chance to reflect upon them. All losses are not equal and neither are all loves. It was impossible to forget what really mattered, what love really counted above all -
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
That was the one worth holding out for, not letting go of despite all odds. That is what Yeats taught me and it is a lesson I will value for life. I believe there is some deep, immutable truth that J finds in The Second Coming - to her, it was addressed to her soul.
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