A Drinking Song
by W.B. Yeats
Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye; That’s all we shall know for truth Before we grow old and die. I lift the glass to my mouth, I look at you, and I sigh.
from Responsibilities and Other Poems. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1916. Public Domain.
The poem feels like a tiny moment caught between pleasure and sadness, the kind that happens in a quiet room with a glass in hand. Yeats manages to say so much with almost nothing just wine, a look, and the awareness that life is short. The contrast between what enters the mouth and what enters the eyes feels honest and a little bittersweet. There’s something tender in the way he lifts the glass and looks at the other person, as if the whole world narrows to that one glance. The line about truth before we grow old hits with a soft kind of resignation. It’s not dramatic it’s just real. The sigh at the end says everything he doesn’t put into words. The poem feels like a toast to love, to time, and to the things we understand only when we’re paying attention. It’s small, but it lingers in a very human way.
Ha ha ha, too true