Everyone really knows Yeats, and it is also through Zhao Zhao's song "When You're Old"!
"When You're Old" is a poem written by the Irish poet William Butler Yeats in 1893, a passionate and sincere love poem by Yeats to his friend Maude Gund.
All his life, Yeats pursued a beautiful, slender and attractive actress, Maude Gang
When they first met in 1889, Yeats fell in love with Maude-Gunn at first sight and proposed to him two years later, but unfortunately Yeats did not succeed. Maud rejected his passion and sent Yeats a good guy card, you are very good, but let's be friends! "He was a man like a woman, and I rejected him and gave him back to the world.". As Maude recalls, "His soul belongs to Ireland."
Later, Maude married The Irish officer, Major McBride, in 1903, two years later. Unfortunately, Maude's marriage was tortuous and short-lived, only 13 years. In 1916, Maude's husband failed in the Easter Rising and was shot dead. After this, Yeats proposed to Gang again, and by this time Yeats was no longer young, he was already half a hundred; but before that, Yeats had never stopped thinking of Maude, and he had been waiting, even if his crush was already a married woman. However, Yeats was again rejected by Lady McBride. But how could Yeats, who was caught in the quagmire of love, be willing? In 1917, Yeats proposed to Maude's daughter Isabella, and yes, Yeats's obsession with Maude reached such a point that I can't get you, so get your daughter!
Sadly, however, Yeats was ruthlessly rejected; fortunately, Yeats finally stopped this absurd idea and proposed to an Englishman, George Heydley, in september 1917, the same year, the two married quickly, and the following year gave birth to his eldest daughter, Ann Yeats, in Dublin.
But even so, Yeats still can't forget Mao DeGang, just like Huang Lei' protagonist Jiang Binliu in the drama "Crush on Peach Blossom Garden", he wants to see his crush again in the last days of his life.
However, a sincere love, if it is missed, can never be caught again, especially the sand between the fingers, after the passage, it will turn into wind and dust; this is a big dream, and it will not be forgotten for a long time after waking up.
In terms of results, Yeats, like Jiang Binliu, did not get the favor until his death. Yeats was even more miserable, and in the last months of his life, he was not able to see Maude-Gang and was even refused to attend his funeral. The truth is that Maude really didn't attend Yeats's funeral, but instead her daughter Isabella sent a wreath.
At this point, you might think of Yeats as a clown, a pathetic loser in love.
In fact, Yeats's emotional life is not so unbearable, he and his wife are very loving, and have a pair of children.
In his later years, he began to write poems for his family, and he worked tirelessly, publishing many poetry collections, plays, and essays. Among them is the pinnacle of his life, "Sailing to Byzantium", which is the culmination of Western post-symbolist poetry.
After his death, the English poet W-H-Auden wrote in mourning Yeats, "Crazy Ireland stabbed you into poetry, and you turned the curse into a vineyard." This is both a summary of Yeats's life and a tribute to his faithfulness to love.
The importance of Yeats in the Irish poetry scene is self-evident, and what I want to say is that the tragic love between Yeats and Maude, both of whom are irish democracy fighters, both work together for Irish independence, but Yeats's peaceful reform and Maude's violent revolution seem incompatible; the "feminine" poet and the "masculine" feminist activist are in the same water; this is doomed to have no flowers and no fruits between the two. The poem "When You're Old" formed by the mixture of love and hate is Yeats's confession and accusation to Maude.
The image comes from the hand-copied newspaper network
There is an untouchable white moonlight in everyone's heart, and she lurks in our hearts, or shines brightly; or is dim, but it has always existed, shining in the heart.
Attached to the text is the original text of the poem:
When you are old when you are old
--- William Butler Yeats – William Butler Yeats
When you are old and grey and full of sleep, when you are old, gray hair, drowsy,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book, sit down by the fire, take the book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look read slowly, chasing the eyes of the year
Your eyes had once,and of their shadows deep; Your feminine radiance and deep halo.
How many loved your moments of glad grace, how many people have loved your ephemeral figure,
And loved your beauty with love false or true, loved your beauty with hypocrisy or truth,
But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you, the only one who ever loved your pilgrim's heart,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face; Love the marks of the years on your mournful face.
And bending down beside the glowing bars, bending down at the edge of the stove cover,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled melancholy brooding, murmuring,
And paced upon the mountains overhead how love passed, and how to step up the mountains,
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars. How to hide your face among the stars.
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