Question

How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face…”

a) How can we say that the person being addressed was once beautiful?
b) Who was the ‘one man’ the poet is talking about?
c) Explain the phrase, ‘the pilgrim soul in you.’​

Answer 1

ANSWERS:

• We can say that the person being addressed was once beautiful because the poet says that many people loved (which is in the past tense) her grace and her beauty. .The one man the poet is talking about is himself.

• But there was one man, the poet himself, who loved the pilgrim soul in her. The Poet means to say that he does not love her outward beauty but her soul. He not only loved her youthful beauty but the sorrows of her changing face also. He will love her till the end of her day.

• A pilgrim is a traveller. Soul in this case means mind or personality. A pilgrim soul might mean a part of you that wants to travel, or it may mean that your personality changes over time. There is one man who loves that part of you.

MORE INFORMATION:-

• Maud Gonne, the Irish revolutionary was a beloved Muse to Yeats. She is the epitome of femininity even if a flawed one at that. If you’ve encountered a Helen of Troy figure in his poems, you’ve seen the lasting influence she’s had on him. The other influence was Ezra Pound. It is thanks to the American poet that Yeats wrote poetic plays in the style of Japanese theatre.

• William Butler Yeats took his role as the artist very seriously. He was also proudly Irish and so many of his poems reflect his heritage in vibrant words.