Time & Brevity
Men Improve with the Years
From The Wild Swans at Coole (1919)
I am worn out with dreams;
A weather-worn, marble triton
Among the streams;
And all day long I look
Upon this lady's beauty
As though I had found in book
A pictured beauty,
Pleased to have filled the eyes
Or the discerning ears,
Delighted to be but wise,
For men improve with the years;
And yet and yet
Is this my dream, or the truth?
O would that we had met
When I had my burning youth;
But I grow old among dreams,
A weather-worn, marble triton
Among the streams.
Codex Note
An old man, 'a weather-worn, marble triton among the streams', looks at a lady's beauty as at a picture in a book. He wishes they had met 'when I had my burning youth'.
Cite this poem
MLA
Yeats, W. B. “Men Improve with the Years.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/yeats/45/.
Chicago
Yeats, W. B. “Men Improve with the Years.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/yeats/45/.
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