"When You Are Old" by Yeats
When you are old, your hair is gray, your sleep is drowsy,
If you are napping by the fire, please take it off. This poem,
read it slowly, recalling the softness of your eyes in the past,
recall their heavy shadows in the past;
How many people love your youthful and joyful look Time,
Admiring your beauty, false or true,
Only one person loves your pilgrim soul,
Loves your aging face Wrinkles of pain;
Hanging his head, beside the glowing red stove,
Telling the passing of love sadly,
Above his head It walked slowly on the mountain,
its face hidden among a group of stars.
I like to sit in the house in winter, brew a pot of fragrant tea, watch the snowflakes falling silently outside the window, and then quietly read a few Yeats's poems. Perhaps due to my personality and experience, I have never been able to enjoy anything that is too avant-garde or trendy, nor do I like anything that is too intense, including emotions and reading. What I like must be leisure, peace with a little humor or a touch of sentimentality. In such a state, I think people can live more easily and clearly.
I first fell in love with Yeats because of his poem "When You Are Old".
The poem was written in 1893, when Yeats was 29 years old. Five years ago, this Irish poet with strong religious feelings met the Irish patriot and beautiful actress Maut Gun. From then on, the infatuated Yeats had a lifelong love for Maut Gun. It is a pity that Yeats spent his whole life pursuing emotion, but was not rewarded by Maut Gang. The poet kept singing a firm and lonely love poem in his life of loveless love.
This poem is one of a large number of poems written by Yeats to Maut Gang.
There are no ups and downs of excitement and catharsis in the whole poem. There are only simple language, soothing tone, and a touch of sentimentality. The calm talk made people feel extremely kind and warm, and overflowing with emotion. Religion-like pure warmth and otherworldly emotions.
When I read this poem, I was young and at the age when I longed for love. What Xu Shi saw in literary works and real life were passionate, public, touching and touching praises of young love. When he first read this poem, he was immediately moved by its simplicity and warmth. What appears in front of her eyes is an old oil painting: a winter with snowflakes, a lover with white hair and wrinkles on his face, nestled in front of the fireplace, reading a love poem written by a poet to her. I have always been moved by such a picture, just as I am more easily moved by the mutual consideration of young people.
When people are young, they have a flower-like appearance, soft and healthy limbs, bright eyes, and a lot of youth, creating a natural carrier for love. Therefore, when poets sing about love, they always connect these beautiful things with beautiful love. Who would firmly love an old woman with aging wrinkles on her face, and who would praise an old woman with painful wrinkles? Where is the old woman's love? Only Yeats. This Irish poet with a transparent soul, romantic, beautiful, handsome and charming, loves a "pilgrim's soul".
Such a firm, simple and warm love has always been my dream and pursuit. So starting from that winter, I fell in love with the poet who wrote this love poem. Even in the future, I will like romantic words like Ireland when I see them.
I have always thought that Yeats’s poems should be read in winter. Because of the desolation and coldness of winter, winter is the end of the four seasons. Reading Yeats's poems in this season will make the warmth like a winter stove more likely to warm the hearts of readers. Looking at Yeats's early poems, such as "Crossroads", "Rose", "Reeds in the Wind", "Among the Seven Leaves", etc., most of them are beautiful sentences and pure emotions, and joy and pain are transformed into independence. The walking words express his unique and beautiful world. In later works, such as "Green Helmet and Others", "Full Moon in March", "Tower", etc., they tend to be duller, simpler and more meaningful. He condensed the passion of poetry into ordinary life. This kind of poetry is a kind of beauty and emotion that can be touched. It is plain and simple but more real. The greatness of Yeats lies in his ability to capture the beauty and emotion of life at any time in real life. poetry. And this kind of poetry touches people's hearts lightly and warmly.
Life is poetry, poetry is life. The important thing is to have a pair of eyes to discover poetry. In winter, Yeats's poems will make you forget the coldness of winter and the biting north wind, will give you a stove to cuddle up against, and will make you wait with hope for a warm love that smiles in the face of the wrinkles of the years. A warm old love.