All a Girl Could Ask of a Boy...

I am a true lover of literature.  It often affects me to the core, and such is the case today.  In my seemingly unending studies as I write my own curriculum for my high school English classes, I uncovered this gem of a poem by W.B. Yeats:

When You are Old


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.

I actually teared up as I read this.  It's amazing how just the right combination of words can evoke such feeling.  I would love to truly teach my students this-- to help them see that it's not so much the iambic pentameter or rhyme that makes a poem a poem, but the beautiful, thoughtful combination of words.

It's a terribly bittersweet poem, because the writer has always loved this woman, from her youth to her old age, but she has rejected him and now regrets it in her old age; she is alone.  He has watched others profess their love for her, though they didn't really love her.  I think the most beautiful sentence is:

"But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you,/And loved the sorrows of your changing face." 

I mean, that's all a girl can ever really ask of a boy, isn't it?