Does love actually come in at the eye though? Yeats was a virgin until 30, besotted by beauty all his life, and went on to become quite the ladies’ man, before and after his marriage. Is it love he’s talking about here… or an old man’s lust for a young beauty? He wrote this one quite late in life and it’s one of those poems that loses some lustre when you know the biography, I think.
Yeats’ made a great myth out of his ‘unrequited’ love but when told from Gonne’s side, the story reads quite differently. If you do genuinely want to know what she was thinking, I’m currently serialising my forthcoming novel about them here on Substack. 😊 A group of us are trying to get a statue erected in Dublin to recognise her for her achievements in her own right.
yes, Orna, I do want to know, and am interested in your forthcoming novel as well. Congratulations on that. I appreciated rounded views and enlightenment.
Marvellous! She really was a remarkable person, with a highly dramatic approach to life, which people either loved or hated, and her relationship with Yeats was fascinating. I adore his poetry but he was a very complex man, and not easy to love. https://ornaross.substack.com/s/the-next-novel
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.
Does love actually come in at the eye though? Yeats was a virgin until 30, besotted by beauty all his life, and went on to become quite the ladies’ man, before and after his marriage. Is it love he’s talking about here… or an old man’s lust for a young beauty? He wrote this one quite late in life and it’s one of those poems that loses some lustre when you know the biography, I think.
Ha ha ha, too true
Right now reading a biography of Yeats, so this feels serendipitous.
What was Maud Gonne thinking? Yeats unrequited love story breaks my heart every time. And this poem, this poem, sigh...
Yeats’ made a great myth out of his ‘unrequited’ love but when told from Gonne’s side, the story reads quite differently. If you do genuinely want to know what she was thinking, I’m currently serialising my forthcoming novel about them here on Substack. 😊 A group of us are trying to get a statue erected in Dublin to recognise her for her achievements in her own right.
yes, Orna, I do want to know, and am interested in your forthcoming novel as well. Congratulations on that. I appreciated rounded views and enlightenment.
Marvellous! She really was a remarkable person, with a highly dramatic approach to life, which people either loved or hated, and her relationship with Yeats was fascinating. I adore his poetry but he was a very complex man, and not easy to love. https://ornaross.substack.com/s/the-next-novel
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.