The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner - Summary | The Heritage of the Words

English | Summary | Unit: Love and Reminiscence

The Lamentation of an Old Pensioner | W.B. Yeats

Although 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.

Grandmother - Summary | The Heritage of the Words

English | Summary | Unit: Love and Reminiscence

Grandmother | Ray Young Bear

The poet of this poem, Ray Young Bear was born into a Meskwaki family on the Meskwaki Tribal Settlement in Iowa. He was guided by his maternal grandmother for knowing culture and heading forth for learning. He has an acute sense of dislocation in two different cultures, American and Meskwaki. So, he puts his respect towards his identity by valorizing in words. The theme of his poem and other words are American Indians’ search for identity.