Why Should Not Old Men Be Mad?
Why Should Not Old Men Be Mad? - context Summary
Published in 1939
Published in 1939 in Yeats's Last Poems, this short piece belongs to his late-period reflections on aging and disillusionment. The speaker lists ruined talents and thwarted lives to argue that old men have cause to be angry. The poem frames bitterness as a learned response: experience and reading of history teach that life rarely preserves youthful promise, so rage becomes an understandable, almost inevitable reaction in old age.
Read Complete AnalysesWhy should not old men be mad? Some have known a likely lad That had a sound fly-fisher's wrist Turn to a drunken journalist; A girl that knew all Dante once Live to bear children to a dunce; A Helen of social welfare dream, Climb on a wagonette to scream. Some think it a matter of course that chance Should starve good men and bad advance, That if their neighbours figured plain, As though upon a lighted screen, No single story would they find Of an unbroken happy mind, A finish worthy of the start. Young men know nothing of this sort, Observant old men know it well; And when they know what old books tell And that no better can be had, Know why an old man should be mad.
Feel free to be first to leave comment.