Spilt Milk

Spilt Milk - meaning Summary

Loss, Diffusion, and Impermanence

Yeats’s short poem reflects on the transience and dispersal of human activity and thought. It suggests that what people do and think cannot remain concentrated or permanent; instead actions and ideas spread thin and dissipate beyond control. The simile evokes an everyday image to make a philosophical point about loss, impermanence, and the inability to contain results or intentions once set in motion.