When You Are Old
W. B. Yeats (1865–1939)
1892

Cold Library · Open Stacks · S-004028 · https://coldlibrary.com/s/004028
Rights: First published in 1892; the author died in 1939. Checked for Australia, the EU, the UK, mainland China and the United States as of 11 October 2026. Guidance, not legal advice.
Source: Wikisource, https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Countess_Kathleen_and_Various_Legends_and_Lyrics/When_You_Are_Old (retrieved 2026-10-11)
Generated 2026-10-14 from https://coldlibrary.com/en/open-stacks/yeats-when-you-are-old

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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.