The Folly of Being Comforted
The Folly of Being Comforted - context Summary
Published 1919
Written for The Wild Swans at Coole (published 1919), this short lyric records Yeats’s personal anguish over his unattainable beloved, Maud Gonne. A consoling voice argues that time will blunt desire by aging her, but the speaker’s heart rejects that comfort, insisting her changing beauty only intensifies feeling. The poem captures frustrated, unreciprocated longing and resistance to the idea that time can ease passionate grief.
Read Complete AnalysesOne that is ever kind said yesterday: 'Your well-beloved's hair has threads of grey, And little shadows come about her eyes; Time can but make it easier to be wise Though now it seems impossible, and so All that you need is patience.' Heart cries, 'No, I have not a crumb of comfort, not a grain. Time can but make her beauty over again: Because of that great nobleness of hers The fire that stirs about her, when she stirs, Burns but more clearly. O she had not these ways When all the wild Summer was in her gaze.' Heart! O heart! if she'd but turn her head, You'd know the folly of being comforted.
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