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The Heritage of Words - The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner - Summary - Grade XII

 The poem "The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner" was composed by an Irish poet and dramatist W.B. Yeats. The speaker of the poem "The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner" is a retired old man who expresses his feeling of sadness and disappointment of having the beauty and youth robbed by the tyranny of time. This poem also contrasts the old and present age of the poet. The poet has felt that time is omnipotent and nobody can resist it. Everyone has to go through various stages of life. Old people are not a burden, rather they are the sources of experience, knowledge, and guidance. The speaker implies that we shouldn't regret as we grow old but celebrate old age.

The speaker is sitting under a broken tree while taking shelter under a broken tree. He feels that he is like that broken tree. When the tree was young and beautiful, everybody came and sat under it, but now when it is broken, it's felt alone.

In the first stanza, the speaker compares his energetic and eventful youth with his lonely and passive old days. In his youth, he used to spend his time with the company of his friends talking about love and politics but now he is alone and is taking shelter from the rain under a broken tree.

In the second stanza, the speaker compares himself with young boys. The young boys are involved in unusual activities like making weapons for conspiracy and expressing their anger at human tyranny. But the speaker seems to be much wiser and more experienced and has something else to concentrate on. He contemplates the tyranny of time for changing him into an old man.

In the third stanza, the speaker gets even more agonized to know that not a single woman looks at him now. However, he still cherishes the memories of being in love with beautiful women in his youth. Finally, he regrets time as responsible for bringing all these changes in his life and expresses his feeling of anger wishing to spit into the face of time.

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