One of my favorite things about poetry are the multiple interpretations a well crafted piece can yield. “When You are Old” by W. B. Yeats is one of these well crafted pieces. My post on the poem being a Carpe Diem, or seize the dame, poem didn’t seem to be very popular, and indeed it may be way off base, but it is fun to support an alternative reading with textual evidence. For instance, this isn’t a poem of an old couple looking back, but of a young man trying to win a lady and saying he is the only one who will stick around and love her for who SHE is. But as of the time the poem is written, he doesn’t know who she is, which makes the claim seem silly. “Pilgrim soul,” as I observed in reading everyone’s posts, is open to a variety of interpretation. Does she wander from man to man? Is she religious? Is she chaste? It seems to be open to the reader’s view.
The poem also never speaks of marriage, which is normal in a carpe diem poem. The speaker isn’t looking for commitment, but for passion. And who equates love with bars, no matter how glowing they are? It sounds more like prison, but at the same time the language is romantic which allows the speaker to dazzle his dame while he tells her the truth, which would be that he will flee: “how love fled / And paced upon the mountains overhead / And hid his face amid a crowd of stars,” (10-12). Whose love fled? Not hers, because he is the one hiding his face amidst all her other admirers.
Again, I may be way off base on this poem, but I think it will make for a fun, arguable explication. I have found the piece for my final paper. If I can pull it off, I will post it for my week 8 blog.
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