‘When You Are Old’ was written to show the true and unforgettable love from the writer. The theme is a painful one of unrequited love, which the poet manipulates in an interesting manner. Instead of focusing upon the present or the past, Yeats looks to the future, a future in which the two people in the poem are destined to be forever apart. The poet visualizes an unreal condition that the woman he loved became old and felt regret for refusing his true love.

To depict such a theme, the poet deploys elegant and quiet words and builds pictures of contrasts: In the first stanza, there is a contrast between her elegant youth and her depressing old age. In the second stanza, there is a contrast between her many suitors who professed superficial love and the speaker or the lover who promises true love for her. In the third stanza, there is a contrast between the fleeting or transient love represented by her many suitors and the personified love of the poet.

There is a contrast between ‘the sorrows of your changing face’ in the second stanza and ‘murmur a little sadly’ of the third stanza. ‘The sorrows’ indicate passion or strong emotion is seen in young people and ‘little sadly’ reflects the listlessness of old people. There is a contrast between the ‘beauty and elegance’ sans her soul sought after by the suitors and the ‘pilgrim soul’ in the same lady cherished by the speaker. The many suitors who wanted to court her were attracted by her superficial beauty whereas this lover/speaker was attracted by her pilgrim soul, which symbolizes her inner self. These contrasts serve to build a strong argument to persuade the young lady not to ignore him now and regret later.