WHEN YOU ARE OLD When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; 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; And bending down beside the glowing bars, Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled And paced upon the mountains overhead And hid his face amid a crowd of stars. -- Verse by William Butler Yeats, circa 1891, addressing his unrequieted love for Maud Gonne, Irish nationalist; it appeared in a vellum manuscript book entitled "The Flame of the Spirit," which he inscribed for her.