My 2 cents on some poems of Yeats

Okay, I'm just going to say that reading Yeats confused me. Not the "I have absolutely no idea what this guy was talking about and can't make heads or tails of it so I'm not going to even try" type of confusion. It was more of a "That's an interesting way of saying whatever the hell he was trying to say, and I think what he was trying to say (insert idea)" type of confusion. There were 3 poems in particular that caught my attention while I was reading: Ephemera, A Faery Song, and When You Are Old. Don't get me wrong all the poems were good in their own way. Each had their own imagery and language unique to the story that was being told, but for certain reasons, those 3 poems were the 3 I kept coming back to.
I had to read Ephemera twice before I caught on to what was going on. I just have to say that would never happen in real life! I would love to see a couple in this society go through a break-up the the couple in the poem did! It was too polite! Too mature! It was calm! Breakups are ugly and divorce is never pretty! Where was the shattering glass and the crying and the screaming!? It wasn't there! I know break-ups are not always like that and don't always end in disaster. The two people in the poem realized together that they had fallen out of love and that's just how life is, was, and will continue to be. One part I liked was "new loves await..." Maybe I should remember this poem for my next break-up. Maybe it won't be as painful if it's looked at from this perspective.
A Faery Song was bittersweet really. I've been seeing a lot of that lately in other things like passages from books, movies I've seen, and stories of friends back home. The Faeries, who are so old and have seen so much, see blissful young love between two people. It's a song, but it also seems like a prayer: "Give to these children...silence and love...Give to these children...rest far from men." It was bitter and sad since the man was killed for taking the woman because she was betrothed to another. But for one night (or however long they had together) there was peace because things were as she should be. It just makes me sad that there was punishment for reacting to true feelings. They were just being honest about what they felt. Is that so selfish?
When You Are Old made me think of my Italian grandparents. I remember seeing photographs of them when they were both young! I saw photos of my grandma when she was just graduating high school, engaged to my grandpa, her wedding, motherhood, then her watching her children having children, and then recent photos of her in her early 80's. Relating the life cycle to this poem, Yeats really knew his stuff! Reflecting on life when you're old with gray hair and arthritis, about the heartaches, trials, happy times, regrets, and memories that have flown by too quickly. Ferris Bueller said it best "Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." I don't intend on missing a thing!