The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner
The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner - context Summary
From Last Poems
Written late in Yeats's career and included in Last Poems, "The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner" adopts an aging speaker who retreats from public life yet recalls past prominence in debates of love and politics. The poem registers resignation and ironic defiance: political ferment and vanished lovers pass by while the speaker's chief concern is Time, which both diminishes him and provokes a final, obscene gesture of contempt.
Read Complete AnalysesAlthough I shelter from the rain Under a broken tree, My chair was nearest to the fire In every company That talked of love or politics, Ere Time transfigured me. Though lads are making pikes again For some conspiracy, And crazy rascals rage their fill At human tyranny, My contemplations are of Time That has transfigured me. There's not a woman turns her face Upon a broken tree, And yet the beauties that I loved Are in my memory; I spit into the face of Time That has transfigured me.
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