Broken Dreams by W.B. Yeats: His Poem for an Ageing Maud Gonne

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This week I picked another great Irish poem from W.B. Yeats. It comes in at number 77 on the top 100 Irish poems list.

Rather than sharing the analysis and my general understanding of the poem first, I have decided to share the poem followed by the analysis of W.B Yeats “Broken Dreams” underneath. 

Broken Dreams

There is grey in your hair.
Young men no longer suddenly catch their breath
When you are passing;
But maybe some old gaffer mutters a blessing
Because it was your prayer
Recovered him upon the bed of death.
For your sole sake—that all heart’s ache have known,
And given to others all heart’s ache,
From meagre girlhood’s putting on
Burdensome beauty—for your sole sake
Heaven has put away the stroke of her doom,
So great her portion in that peace you make
By merely walking in a room.

Your beauty can but leave among us
Vague memories, nothing but memories.
A young man when the old men are done talking
Will say to an old man, ‘Tell me of that lady
The poet stubborn with his passion sang us
When age might well have chilled his blood.’

Vague memories, nothing but memories,
But in the grave all, all, shall be renewed.
The certainty that I shall see that lady
Leaning or standing or walking
In the first loveliness of womanhood,
And with the fervour of my youthful eyes,
Has set me muttering like a fool.

You are more beautiful than any one,
And yet your body had a flaw:
Your small hands were not beautiful,
And I am afraid that you will run
And paddle to the wrist
In that mysterious, always brimming lake
Where those that have obeyed the holy law
Paddle and are perfect; leave unchanged
The hands that I have kissed
For old sake’s sake.

The last stroke of midnight dies.
All day in the one chair
From dream to dream and rhyme to rhyme I have ranged
In rambling talk with an image of air:
Vague memories, nothing but memories.

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

What is the poem Broken Dreams all about?

Well, another fabulous Irish poem by Yeats. This is another poem about his love Maud. In it, he goes through past, present, future and his unrequited love for Maud. 

It was published in The Wild Swans at Coole in 1917, when Yeats was in his early fifties. In the summer of 1916 he had proposed to Maud Gonne one last time, after her estranged husband, John MacBride, was executed for his part in the Easter Rising. She said no again. 

So Yeats, in this poem, talks about Maud and how even though time has passed, she still is incredible in his eyes.

 “Your beauty can but leave among us”. Yeats is still amazed by the physical beauty she once had.

If you don’t know, Yeats was tormented with his love for Maud and her unwillingness to reciprocate the love back to him. In other poems by Yeats, such as “When you are old” or “Cloths of Heaven“, he can still not accept this fact. 

“Vague memories, nothing but memories.” which highlights that he has finally accepted Maud’s rejection and is no longer tormented by it.

After all, they say that time heals all wounds, which I am sure could be an old Irish saying. 

So you could say that Yeats used the title “Broken Dreams” to be deemed that throughout this poem, he accepts that their relationship was something of the past and realises there is no point in pursuing something that is already lost or even “broken”.

A great poem by Yeats. What did you think of this top Irish poem? 

Comment below, and thanks for stopping by. 

Stephen 

Broken Dreams: form and themes

Form

The poem moves like a mind drifting through memories: long, uneven lines, scattered rhymes, and the refrain “Vague memories, nothing but memories” coming back three times. Only in the last stanza do we learn the setting. The last stroke of midnight is fading, and the poet has spent the whole day in one chair, “in rambling talk with an image of air”.

Key themes

• Ageing beauty: there is grey in her hair, and young men no longer catch their breath when she passes, but her goodness still blesses people.
• Memory and the afterlife: he is certain he will see her again in “the first loveliness of womanhood” after death.
• Love of imperfection: the tenderest moment in the poem. Her small hands were not beautiful, and he hopes that in the lake where the blessed are made perfect, she will leave unchanged “the hands that I have kissed”.
• Self-mockery: he admits the thought has “set me muttering like a fool”.

More Irish poems

• He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by W.B. Yeats
• Ephemera by W.B. Yeats
• Sailing to Byzantium by W.B. Yeats
• Ireland’s top 100 Irish poems

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