A Man Young and Old

A Man Young and Old

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Read by: Mike Vendetti

Language: English

Length: 8 minutes

Publisher: Spoken Realms

Release date: 2020-04-10

Award-winning audiobook narrator and producer Mike Vendetti reads 10 poems by William Butler Yeats expressing much of the frustration of his life. He fell in love with Maud Gonne and his long years of fidelity ended badly.

He later stated, "[T]he tragedy of sexual intercourse is the perpetual virginity of the soul." The relationship did not develop into a new phase after their night together, and soon afterward Gonne wrote to the poet indicating that despite the physical consummation, they could not continue as they had been: Nearly 20 years later, Yeats recalled the night with Gonne in this poem included in this compilation.