The Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water
The Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water - meaning Summary
Aging and Fading Beauty
Yeats presents a brief, elegiac scene in which elderly men reflect on mortality and loss. Their repeated line—everything changes and beauty "drifts away"—frames images of physical decay: clawed hands and twisted knees compared to thorny trees by water. The poem links bodily decline to the steady, indifferent movement of water, suggesting that change and the disappearance of beauty are natural, inevitable processes beyond resistance.
Read Complete AnalysesI heard the old, old men say, 'Everything alters, And one by one we drop away.' They had hands like claws, and their knees Were twisted like the old thorn-trees By the waters. I heard the old, old men say, 'All that's beautiful drifts away Like the waters.'
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