Analysis of “When You Are Old” by W. B. Yeats This poem When You Are Old by W. B. Yeats is about Yeats telling his lover how it is going to be when she is old, and he is not around anymore. He is telling her how much he loves her now and how she will think about his love when she is old. She does not say anything although the speaker imagines her saying something in the end of this poem. Yeats wrote this when he was 28, and he talks about what she might be doing, feeling, dreaming when she is old. This poem is very sweet and sad, because he is telling her how he loves her, but at the same time he is not