William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats
When you are old, gray-haired and sleepy,
When you are old, gray-haired and sleepy,
Take a nap by the fire, take down this book,
Tired of sitting by the fire, take down this book,
Reading slowly, dreaming of the gentle eyes.
Read slowly, chasing the eyes of the year.
Your eyes were once, and their shadows were deep;
Your soft eyes and deep aura.
How many people love your happy and elegant moments,
How many people like your flash in the pan,
Loving your beauty with true or false love,
Love your beauty, hypocrisy or truth,
But there is one person who loves your pilgrim soul.
Only one person loved your pilgrim heart,
Love the sadness on your aging face;
Love the scars of years on your sad face.
Bend down by the glowing fireplace,
Bend over the hood,
Whispering a little sadly, how love dies.
Meditation and muttering,
Pacing on the mountains overhead
How love dies, how to climb mountains,
Hide his face among the stars.
How to hide your face among the stars?
Make an appreciative comment
When the poet wrote this poem, the object he loved was young, with a beautiful face and charm. People often say, "Which girl is not good at love and which boy is not good at love." Throughout the ages, love always seems to be associated with youth and beauty. When people are bathed in the glory of love, there is only the present in their minds, and there is always a hidden desire to refuse time, change and turn the moment into eternity. However, the poet is determined to travel far away just to visit, thinking of the girl's old age and imagining her white-haired and rickety body.
Telling a girl who is enjoying the fruits of youth about her twilight years is like telling a newborn child that he must die. This is cruel, but it is an irresistible natural law. The poet wrote this not only to tell her the "truth", but to express his love for her in this way. The poet seems to be a loner, watching from a distance, but clinging, loving this admired girl and giving her his unique but truly precious love, because others only love her true love or false love face, and the unique poet loves her noble soul. Beauty is easy to get old, but youth is hard to stay, but the noble soul and inner beauty of a girl will last forever in the passage of time, just like wine, the longer it is hidden, the more mellow it will be, so the poet's love can transcend time and external beauty.
This love poem is unique, and its uniqueness comes from the poet's unique and sincere feelings. Without this kind of emotion, deliberately being original will only make people feel artificial. Therefore, this poem is not so much an imaginary description of the girl's twilight years as an expression of the poet's true feelings for the girl and the fleeting years. In this sense, it is the sincere feelings of sadness and hopelessness that overflow from the poem that move us.
The whole poem has neat rhythm, concise language and beautiful artistic conception. There are no flowery words in the poem, but there are majestic emotions hidden behind the simple and plain words. The emotional trajectory expressed by Ye Zhi in his poems can be compared to a river: it flows in the canyon, then flows into the river, and finally disappears peacefully into the sea. However, just under the calm sea, I believe there must be rolling waves that buried all his hopes, disappointments and despair. Any young heart will not and will not face the old, dying, layers of wrinkles, such as silver hair, which is a heavy feeling. However, young Ye Zhi stood at the end of time, always telling and imagining his old age scenes in a calm and expressive tone, and showing his love for Maud Gunn to the fullest.
The whole poem is divided into three sections. These three poems, which have a beginning and an end, take care of each other and are quite ingenious. The first part begins with a hypothetical adverbial of time. The poet imagines an elderly lover reading a collection of poems by the fire a few years later. She was covered with frost and sat alone, but she was not alone, because Ye Zhi's poems accompanied her. When she recites it gently, she will recall everything in the past, her beautiful eyes, soft light and deep halo. Ye Zhi was only 29 when he wrote this poem, while Maud Gunn was only 27. The hypothesis of "when you are old" is embodied by images such as "hoary head", "sleepy" and "taking a nap by the fire". The moment of "old" suddenly came to us, hazy and static, but so vivid and shocking. What will you see when you look at yourself from the other side of time? The poet's emotional experience and the long years after writing this poem all confirm his feelings when writing this poem. The poet seems to have been moving towards his hypothetical time and space without hesitation, just like moving towards a belief.
The second section is the focus of the whole poem, and the poet skillfully uses the method of contrast to express his deep affection. "When you are young and happy, how many people are beautiful, hypocritical or sincere in adore you? Only one person loves your pilgrim's soul and the painful wrinkles on your aging face. " The poet pointed out that others love your youthful exuberance and your beautiful appearance, while I love your holy heart that keeps fighting for national freedom. Even if the shade of youth has fallen, "I" will still love the sadness and wrinkles on your face. Compared with those people, the poet's love is undoubtedly deeper, more sincere and more loyal. Time has brought a heavy test to love, but time has also verified love. Only through time can love be rock-solid and last forever.
The third section turns to the future virtual artistic conception. The poet's language is as gentle as down, gently guiding lovers to enter just to visit in advance-"When you are old", your old man's hair turns white, your face is no longer bright and beautiful, your body is bent, and you take a nap by the fire, but I still feel heartache for your aging, but I still ring the bell of love for you. The poet's love in reality is so hopeless that he has to guide the other person to imagine the scene many years later, hoping that lovers can understand his infatuation as soon as possible after seeing this poem, instead of waiting for many years, everything becomes permanent pain. Then the poet wrote: "On the mountain overhead, it walked slowly, hiding its face among a group of stars." The poet's love did not disappear, but lingered on the mountain overhead, reluctant to leave, and finally hid himself among a group of stars. The images of "mountain" and "star" in these two sentences expand the artistic conception and space of the poem and make people feel a kind of holy beauty. The poet's love is constantly sublimated to the pure and lofty realm, sublimated to infinite space, and becomes an eternity.
"How many people have seen worship you when you were young? We know who is willing to bear the relentless changes of time. How many people come back and forth in your life, knowing that I will accompany you all my life. " For Ye Zhi, love will never die. In this time-based poem, the poet not only vividly conveys the unique emotional experience of individual life with exquisite brushwork, but more importantly, the poet understands the universal experience of all mankind from his personal feelings, thus realizing the individual's transcendence of life and the world.