Youth and Age

W. B. Yeatsfirst published 1928from The Tower4 lines

Much did I rage when young,Being by the world oppressed,But now with flattering tongueIt speeds the parting guest.

Text: Poetry, by W. B. Yeats (Standard Ebooks, 2024), from the collected editions of 1908 to 1928. Public domain.

In brief

Summary

The world that once oppressed him now flatters him on his way out.

Four lines, one reversal. As a young man the speaker raged against a world that held him down. Now that he is old the same world speaks kindly, with a "flattering tongue", but only because it is seeing him off. The last line borrows the old rule of hospitality, to speed the parting guest: the world's praise is the politeness a host shows to someone who is leaving. The joke is dry and a little bitter.

Lines to remember

Much did I rage when young,

It speeds the parting guest.

Line by line

Lines 1 to 4Rage, then flattery
Two lines of youth and anger, "Much did I rage when young", are answered by two lines of age. The world's new kindness is not respect but farewell: it "speeds the parting guest", hurrying him politely towards the door.

Themes

Ageing

Age is pictured as a departure. The old man is a "parting guest", already on his way out, and the world's warmth is a sign of how close the leaving is. The poem sees this clearly and without self-pity, turning a sad truth into a wry observation.

Fame and flattery

The "flattering tongue" belongs to a world that ignored or "oppressed" him when he most needed it. The poem distrusts late praise: it comes when it costs nothing and helps nobody. The contrast between "rage" and flattery shows how little the world has changed, only its manners.

Context

The poem was collected in The Tower (Macmillan, 1928). By then Yeats had won the Nobel Prize for Literature (1923) and served as a senator of the Irish Free State, so the world's flattery was real enough. The poem sits beside other short pieces on age in the book, such as "The Wheel".

Form

A single quatrain of short three-beat lines rhymed ABAB ("young" and "tongue", "oppressed" and "guest"). The halves mirror each other, with "But now" as the hinge. The brevity makes it work like an epigram, with the sting saved for the last three words.