Literary Commentary
The song of the old mother

Presented to:
Miss Angela

Presented by:
Mohamed Nour

Oasis school of Maadi
16/10/2012
English

In this ten-line poem, Yeats talks about the life of an old woman who compares her harsh daily routine with that of carefree young women.

In the first four lines, the old woman tells us that she has to get up at sunrise, start a fire and prepares to cook throughout the day and work. It is obvious that the mother is compared to the sun in a metaphorical way. First of all she states “I rise in the dawn” which is an image of the sun rising early in the morning. The fact that she says 'I must scrub and bake and sweep' gives the impression that she has no other choice, and does not enjoy this work. . The only time that the mother is allowed to stop working is at night. In the fourth line there is a personification they 'blink and peep', to give the old woman a hint that her day's work is finally over.
Over the next four lines, the old mother comments on the life of the young girls around her, who is totally different than hers. She complains that young women have no work to do; they spend their time in day dreaming. They don't have to get up early like she does; they can stay in bed as long as they wish. All that matters is if their hair and their clothes match each other.
In the last two lines of the poem, the old mother returns to thoughts of how she has to spend her days: there is a repetition of the word “must” that assures us that she must work because she’s old and that there will always be work that needs to be done. In The last line there is a comparison “the fire is growing cold” the old woman is compared to the fire that she lights, as how she works from the dawn when the fire is lit and only rests when she is “feeble and cold” when the fire goes out.
Yeats represented the thoughts of an old