S
shewok
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The poem was written in 1938, about one year before Yeats' death. During his later life, Yeats adopted a belief in Tantric sex as a path to divinity without consummation. The poem follows from these beliefs. It is about the struggle to continue sexual pleasure while his body is failing. He realizes he is old, yet brags that he has something young men do not--"Words I have that can pierce the heart". He's speaking to a Catholic girl who tells him she gave all her love to God, but the narrator chooses earthly pleasures over the spiritual.