2nd PUC English When You Are Old Notes | WB Yeats English Notes | English Question Ans

WHEN YOU ARE OLD
-W.B. Yeats

I. Answer the following in a word or a phrase or a sentence 

1. Who according to the speaker in ‘When You Are Old’ will be ‘nodding by the fire’? 

Ans: The beloved.

2. What does the speaker expect his beloved to do, nodding by the fire in ‘When You Are Old’? 

Ans: Read a book of poems.

3. When would the woman dream of the soft look that she had in her youthful days, according to the speaker in ‘When You Are Old’? 

Ans: While reading the book of poems.

4. In ‘When You Are Old’, ‘the one man’ loved the woman’s____________. 

a. Moments of glad grace  

b. The pilgrim soul in her   

c. soft look 

Ans: b. the pilgrim soul.

5. In the poem ‘When You Are Old’ many loved the lady’s  

a) Huge wealth. 

b) Physical beauty. 

c) Pilgrim soul. 

Ans: b) physical beauty.

6. Who loved the pilgrim soul of the woman in ‘When You Are Old’? 

Ans: The speaker/the poet.

7. What did the speaker in ‘When You Are Old’ love besides the pilgrim soul? 

Ans: The sorrows of her changing face.

8. Where according to the speaker in ‘When You Are Old’ did love pace upon? 

Ans: Upon the mountains.

9. Where according to the speaker in ‘When You Are Old’ did love hide his face?

Ans: Amid a crowd of stars.

4 / 6 marks Questions and answers 

1. How is the transient nature of beauty as against permanence of love brought out in ‘When You Are Old’?

OR 

‘When You Are Old’ makes the ‘beloved’ look back on her youth. Discuss.

OR 

How does the speaker contrast his love with that of many others in ‘When You Are Old’? 

Ans: In this poem, the poet asks his beloved to think forward to a time when she would be old and grey. She would no longer be beautiful. But a weak woman nodding by the fire. Then, the poet asks her to read his love poems, sitting by the fire. Perhaps it is a book of poems that he has written for her. The reading of those love poems forces her to remember her own youthful beauty. And help her recall her former glories. It’s a bitter sweet moment for her. She could remember when she was beautiful, on the other hand she knows her looks have faded. She would also remember the men who just loved her physical beauty. At last, she would remember the poet who loved her inner beauty. He loved her pilgrim soul and ever-changing face of joys and sorrows. He even loved her as her looks had begun to fade. She would realize the poet’s true love. But it would be too late. By then, the love in the form of the poet would have left her. He would be one among the crowd of stars or pacing upon the mountains. Thus the poem is about two young lovers imagining what life would be when they are old.

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