Meeting

W. B. Yeatsfirst published 1929from The Winding Stair and Other Poems18 lines

Hidden by old age awhileIn masker’s cloak and hood,Each hating what the other loved,Face to face we stood:‘That I have met with such,’ said he,‘Bodes me little good.’

‘Let others boast their fill,’ said I,‘But never dare to boastThat such as I had such a manFor lover in the past;Say that of living men I hateSuch a man the most.’

‘A loony’d boast of such a love,’He in his rage declared:But such as he for such as me—Could we both discardThis beggarly habiliment—Had found a sweeter word.

Text: The Winding Stair and Other Poems (Macmillan, London, 1933). Public domain.

In brief

Summary

Two old former lovers meet, trade insults, and glimpse their buried love.

Two people who were once lovers meet again in old age. Age hides them like a costume at a masked ball, and each now hates what the other loves. He says the meeting "Bodes me little good." She answers that he must never claim her as a past lover, since of all living men she hates him most. He retorts that only a lunatic would brag of such a love. Then the woman who speaks the poem turns aside: if they could both throw off the "beggarly habiliment" of their old bodies, they would have found "a sweeter word".

Lines to remember

Hidden by old age awhile

This beggarly habiliment

Had found a sweeter word.

Line by line

Lines 1 to 6Masked by age
Old age is pictured as a disguise, a "masker's cloak and hood", so the two barely know each other. They stand "Face to face" as enemies, "Each hating what the other loved", and he speaks first, sourly: meeting her "Bodes me little good."
Lines 7 to 12Her scornful reply
She answers with scorn. Others may brag as they please, but he must never say that "such as I" had "such a man" for a lover. The chiming "such" sets them up as matched opposites, and her last words make the hatred plain: of living men she hates him "the most".
Lines 13 to 18A sweeter word
He hits back: "A loony'd boast of such a love". Then the tone changes. Speaking to us rather than to him, she says that if they could both discard "This beggarly habiliment", the worn clothing of old bodies, they would have found "a sweeter word". Under the insults, the old love is still there.

Themes

Age as disguise

The poem's governing image is old age as a costume. In line 2 it is a "masker's cloak and hood"; in line 17 it is a "beggarly habiliment", ragged clothes that might in theory be thrown off. The true selves, and the love between them, are imagined as still young underneath. Age does not change who they are; it hides them from each other.

Love and hatred

The lovers have become enemies, "Each hating what the other loved", and the middle of the poem is a quarrel in which each tries to disown the other. Yet the insults protest too much. The repeated "such" binds the two together even as they part, and the last three lines admit that the hatred belongs to the disguise, and that "a sweeter word" was always possible.

Context

"Meeting" belongs to "A Woman Young and Old", a sequence of eleven poems that follows a woman's experience of love from youth to age. It first appeared in a book in The Winding Stair (New York, 1929), a limited edition of 642 copies, and was then collected in The Winding Stair and Other Poems (Macmillan, 1933).

The sequence is a companion to "A Man Young and Old" in The Tower (1928). Near its end, the woman looks back across a lifetime of love, and this meeting of two aged lovers sets the bitterness of old quarrels against the memory of something sweeter.

Form

Three six-line stanzas in the manner of a ballad. Lines of about four beats alternate with shorter lines of three, and only the even lines rhyme, often loosely ("boast", "past", "most"; "declared", "discard", "word"). The plain, clipped rhythm suits a sharp exchange, and the break in line 15 opens a sudden, softer aside.