Lyric Poem · Love

When You Are Old

by W. B. Yeats · 1893

Reading room

1When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

2And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

3And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

4Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

5How many loved your moments of glad grace,

6And loved your beauty with love false or true,

7But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

8And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

9And bending down beside the glowing bars,

10Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

11And paced upon the mountains overhead

12And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

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“When You Are Old” by W. B. Yeats — quilloak.com/poems/when-you-are-old

Quick facts

Poem: When You Are Old
Poet: W. B. Yeats
Published: 1893
Length: 12 lines
Form: Lyric Poem, Rhyming Poems
Themes: Love, Sad, Life

Craft notes

How this poem works

Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.

Shape: 12 lines · 3 quatrains
End rhyme: ABBA in every stanza — enclosed rhyme.
Line length: Mostly 10-syllable lines (pentameter length).

The poem’s silhouette — approximate syllables per line, measured from the text above. Even bars mean a measured line; ragged bars mean the poem sets its own widths.

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Text, source & rights

A traceable edition

Full-text display is based on a United States term-expiry review; status can differ elsewhere.

Author record: W. B. Yeats1865–1939
Source record: QuillOak curated editionWhen You Are Old (1893) by william-butler-yeats
Display decision: Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
Publication record: 1893
Text fingerprint: SHA-256 2ed2ea4325c4db7b…
Editorial handling: Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.