A Prayer for Old Age
A Prayer for Old Age - context Summary
Published in 1921
Written late in Yeats s career and published in 1921 in Michael Robartes and the Dancer, the poem addresses aging and the poet s wish to preserve creative passion. Yeats asks to be spared detached, purely intellectual thoughts and instead to be allowed the apparent folly of a heart-driven artist. The prayer frames seeming foolishness as preferable to a safe, admired wisdom that would kill inspired song.
Read Complete AnalysesGod guard me from those thoughts men think In the mind alone; He that sings a lasting song Thinks in a marrow-bone; From all that makes a wise old man That can be praised of all; O what am I that I should not seem For the song's sake a fool? I pray -- for word is out And prayer comes round again -- That I may seem, though I die old, A foolish, passionate man.
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