Two Years Later
Two Years Later - meaning Summary
Age and Unshared Language
The poem presents an older speaker addressing a younger person, warning against naive, passionate attachments that lead to suffering. Using the moth-and-flame image and the repeated contrast of youth and age, the voice insists that experience teaches a harsher truth the young cannot yet hear. The speaker predicts the younger will repeat a mother’s fate, taking comfort in illusions while ultimately becoming "broken," and laments their separate, "barbarous" tongues.
Read Complete AnalysesHas no one said those daring Kind eyes should be more learn'd? Or warned you how despairing The moths are when they are burned? I could have warned you; but you are young, So we speak a different tongue. O you will take whatever's offered And dream that all the world's a friend, Suffer as your mother suffered, Be as broken in the end. But I am old and you are young, And I speak a barbarous tongue.
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