Formal Comparative Poetry EssayWilliam Blake and W.B. Yeats

Formal Comparative
Poetry Essay


In the two poems Spring by William Blake and When You Are Old by W. B. Yeats there are two types of subject matter connected by one major point. The two types are birth and death, connected by life. We see the beginning of life, or birth, in the poem Spring, and we see death in the poem When You Are Old.

When comparing these two poems using the subject matter of life and death, there are many examples of imagery. In Spring, the images one may picture happy thoughts;
Nightingale
In The Dale,
Lark in Sky,
Merrily,
Merrily merrily, to welcome in the Year.

When one reads that, one can only assume happy thoughts by associating nightingales, and larks in the sky. However, in When You Are Old, one sees pictures of ...