"The poems, prose, and drama gathered in When You Are Old introduce a fresh portrait of the Nobel-Prize-winning writer as a younger man: the 1890s aesthete and dandy who collected Irish folklore, dabbled in magic, and wrote heartrending poems for his beloved--the beautiful, elusive Irish revolutionary Maud Gonne. From the astonishing beauty and depth of his youthful poetry to his imaginative explorations of Irish folk history, these writings proffer lush images of western Ireland full of faeries and otherworldly beings, all framed within a profound fascination with aestheticism and the mystical life. Though the complex modernist verse of his later years sealed his poetic legacy, this collection highlights the work for which Yeats was best known during his own lifetime. Wrought with decadent lyricism and longing solemnity, these enchanting works offer a renewed encounter with the lovelorn bard and Irish nationalist who first captivated a generation of readers."--Page [4] of cover.