Stanza II: Yeats' mind immediately turns to thoughts of Maud Gonne. He again uses the metaphor of Helen of Troy in describing Maud Gonne as 'Ledaean body'. The image he conjures up is of a present day Maud reminiscing about his childhood and allowing Yeats an insight into that period of their life. Yeats first met Maud when they were teenagers when she visited his home in London. He felt because their childhood was spent apart that their relationship was lacking in some understanding. By learning of her childhood, Yeats now believed that they would achieve the perfect platonic relationship. He uses the idea of Platos parable from the work Symposium. In that work Plato suggested that male and female were identical at birth but grew apart as they developed. Yeats investigated the image suggesting that while he and Maud were born apart they have gradually come closer together, so that they are comporable to the yolk and white of one egg. His preoccupation has continued into stanza three.

Stanza III: In this stanza he wonders if any reminder of her as a child can be seen in the faces in the children sitting before him. Although he describes Maud Gonne as a semi-devine image, he recognises that there may be a similarity between her and the childhood of ordinary children -: "For even daughters of the swan can share Something of every paddler's heritage" The belief in this possibility excites in Yeats the idea of Maud Gonne as a child:- "She stands before me as a living child."

Stanza IV: In this stanza the reality of the present reasserts itself and an image of an ageing Maud Gonne is presented, however, even in what is a less than perfect image, Yeats finds a means to attribute a magnificence to Maud. He compares her to a renaissance sculptor which were remarkable for the realism in which they portrayed the subject while still retaining an artistic perfection. Maud Gonne's features are therefore portrayed as -: "Did Quattrocento finger fashion it Hollow of cheek as though drank the wind And took a mess of shadows for its meet?" Yeats though realising his imperfections also sees the degradation of his own state with age. In the final lines of stanza four, Yeats, rather than admit to the reality, puts on a mask - the sixty year old smiling public man redescribed as-: "a comfortable kind of old scarecrow."

Stanza V: In this stanza Yeats moves from a personal and universalises his theme. He is fascinated by the aging process and the mortality of man. He wonders if a mother nursing her new born son would, if she saw him as a sixty year old man, felt that the pain of childbirth was worth it given the decrepid state of her sons body. He sees the process of birth as a turmoil for the child suggesting that birth is accompanied by the timing of forgetfulness which gradually includes the infant to forget the prenatal existence in the womb. He interprets the suckling of a new born child as symbolising a battle memory and forgetfulness as on one hand the child seeking to return to the prenatal environment and as the other is forced by its humanity to continue with its mortal existence.

Stanza VI: In stanza six Yeats investigates the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle and Phythagarous. Plato's philosophy suggested that this world was but a shadowy reflection of the real world. Aristotle by contrast had a more prismatic philosophy. As the tutor of Alexander the Great, Aristotle's philosophy was givin an opportunity to prove himself and did so by the military victories by his pupil. Phythagarous saw the world in terms of music and he believed that the alignment of the planets was comparable to the musical notes on a scale. None of the philosophers provide a solution for Yeats. As each declined into old age and died.

Stanza VII: In this stanza Yeats considers the question of the worshipper and the worshipped . He begins with a seemingly paradoxical comparison between nuns and mothers. Suggesting that an image worshipped by a mother i.e. infant child, while differed from the statues worshipped by nuns are in essence as unresponsive-: "Yet they too break hearts" What Yeats means here is that a child will not always returns to its mothers love or with- "With sixty or more winters on its head" will not match up to the perfect image it has of it. While a religious statue representing the saint will not always answer the nuns prayers. In the second half of the stanza he introduces a third element that of the unrequited lover (that is Yeats himself) and suggests that all those who worship images of perfection are ultimately disappointed by them, the reality is not the ideal - that the images we create in our mind are far removed from the actual object that forms our love.

Stanza VIII: The original draft of the poem finished at the end of stanza VII but on reflection, Yeats felt that it was too pessimistic. Stanza VIII provides us with a passable refuse from this pessimism a suggestion that perhaps unity of being is obtainable. Yeats provides us with two metaphors-: i) a chestnut tree. He shows that the tree is made up of many separate components -: "Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?" but in doing this he recognises that the essence of the tree is its unity-: "Great-rooted blossomer" Similarly Yeats recognises that it is impossible to speculate the dancer from the dance as one without the other would not exist.