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.

W.B. Yeats was born in Dublin and was influenced by the currents of Irish nationalism. In 1899 he desperately fell in love with Maud Gonne, a beautiful actress and passionate Irish nationalist who refused to marry him and she was the subject of most of his love poems. At first followed tradition of romanticism as a member of the Aesthetic movement. His second period was influenced by the Irish nationalist movement and his passion of Maud Gonne. Third as a modernist poet. Fourth as a realist-symbolist-metaphysical poet.

In this poem the passage of time is blamed for the man’s brokenness: he has grown old. It gives a sense of loss due to power of time which took over rational energies (politics), and emotional beauties of life (love). So, it provokes a deep sense of love for life as time surpasses and keeps us isolated. 

Second stanza brings forth the issues of the world as need for razing war against tyrannical rules. But at the stage of aging there is no big values for such issue. It is just about capital TIME, which overpowers everything of the world. So, he gets into deep thinking of time. He is concerned only with his own private war against Time.

Third stanza deals with a sense of victory of the old pensioner as he is able to conquer Time. Time may destroy youth, but it cannot take away the memory was loved and cherished. This knowledge gives freedom to the pensioner, enabling him to “spit into the face of Time”. He expresses his dissatisfaction towards time as he had had conceptualized life with energies and emotions of youth.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Long Questions

      1.       Why does the poet lament for being an old man?

      2.       Why is the poet angry with time? How does he express his anger?

      3.       Write an essay on Youth and Age.

 Short Questions

1.       What do you think the poet was like as a young man?

2.       Why and how does the poet express his anger towards time?

3.       What is the central idea of the poem?

4.       What does the poem say about the old man? Mention his character, attitude and circumstances.

5.       Describe the shifts in subject matter in the three stanzas?

6.       What is the tone of the poem: complacency, resignation, rang? Why?

7.       Explain the signification of the refrain ‘Ere time transfigured me’.