AN ACRE OF GRASS

The theme of old age is a recurring preoccupation in Yeat’s work, particularly

towards the last age of his poetry. However it is also present in his youthful writings.
His poetry constantly charts the tensions between the youth and old age. In his Celtic
Twilight days, he regarded old age as: “When you are old and full of sleep...”, here
old age is regarded as a thing full of nostalgia and a sense of calmness. This attitude
or stance towards old age is reiterated in a poem ‘The Coming of Wisdom with Time’
where he makes the bold assertion that “Now I may wither into truth’, the idea that
old age brings wisdom is asserted in another poem as ‘bodily decrepitude is wisdom’.
The same idea also lies between in Byzantium and other poems of the second period
where he stresses the belief that old age frees a man from his sensual pleasures and
liberates his soul. Yeats as it is were discovers an antidote to old age-spiritual
regeneration a condition of tranquil poise, a world which exists as it were beyond
time.