THE LAMENTATION OF THE OLD PENSIONER

THE LAMENTATION OF THE OLD PENSIONER

W.B.Yeasts

YEATS, W (illam) B ( ulter ) ( 1985-1939) , Irish poet and dramatist  . He spent a large part of his life in London, although his interest in Irish cultural and politic al life remained constant. He was a co - founder of the Irish National Theater company (later based at the abbey theater in Dublin), and his play the Countess Cathleen) began the Irish theatrical revival. he was also  prominent in Ireland cultural and  literary revival. Which takes its name from his collection of stories The Celtic Twilight (1983)  In his poetry ,the elaborate style of his earlier work was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites, while his later work used a sparser, more lyrical , style and was influenced  by symbolism, as well as by his interest in mysticism and the occult .His best - known collections from this later period are The Tower (1928) , including the poems , “ Sailing to Byzantium “ and : Leda and the Swan ,” and The Winding Stair ( 1929) Yeast served as a senator of the Irish Free State  (1922-28) and was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1923.

This poem (1938) is  a revised version of Yeast ‘s earlier poem “ The Old Pensioner “ (1890) .It presents the poet’s reminiscences of his young life which become more agonizing when he looks at his present state and contrasts his time of youth with his state in the old age .

Although I shelter form the rain

Under a broken tree

My chair was nearest to the fire

In every company

That talked on Love or politics,

Ere Time transfigured me.

Though lands are making pikes again

For some conspiracy,

And crazy rascals rage their fill

At human tyranny, my contemplation 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.