Question

Read the excerpt.

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face…
In this excerpt from “When You Are Old” by William Butler Yeats, how is the love of “one man” different from the others who have loved the woman?


He loved the beauty of her face.

He loved with a love that was both false and true.

He loved her when she was not beautiful or graceful.

He loved how she seemed out of place.

Answer 1

He loved how she seemed out of place, because it says “But one man love the pilgrim soul in you..”

Answer 2

The answer is option 3. He loved her when she was not beautiful or graceful.

Step-by-step explanation:

Human beings eventually age. This is considered by many as the loss of beauty. In other words, people stop being beautiful when they get older. In this excerpt from “When You Are Old” by William Butler, the author explains how the woman was loved by many for her beauty, but it was never a sincere love. However, there was only a man who loved her for what she was inside. When he says: “But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, and loved the sorrows of your changing face…” this means that he loved her in spite of her eld because he was seeing beyond her beauty.