Irish Poem for the Ages

I took the Lit classes that are part and parcel of most English major programs here in the United States. Several classes that focused on poetry were taught by a certain professor who showed little interest in what the two or three men in class had to say . In his class, poems were something young girls could speak about and interpret in great detail.  Men were clueless (and maybe we were).

I left school without much interested in poetry although writing poems myself on an old half plastic-half metal Sears mini portable typewriter was one of my greatest pleasures in high school and college.  When my folks bought me the typewriter and I no longer had to rely on my mom's Underwood with the sticky keys, I was in creative heaven--not that I wrote anything that was good, but I was expressive.

Here's something that struck me recently. I love this one.

                             When You Are Old

                                                  When you are old and grey 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.

                                                 

                                                                           —William Butler Yeats