The Coming of Wisdom With Time

THOUGH the leaves are many, the root is one;

through all the lying days of my youth

I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;

Now I may wither into the truth.

                       William Butler Yeats

Poetry Response: The Coming of Wisdom with Time

                From a first-impression viewpoint, this poem is a short piece of imagery, with obvious eminence in its underlying symbols. Written from the perspective of a tree (first-person), the poem brings attention to the themes of age, wisdom, and time through combined use of several literary techniques, still allowing the imagination to wander and attach it’s meaning to several aspects of life.

                The primary aspect that I notice about this poem is its title: “The Coming of Wisdom with Time”. This saying brings to my mind other phrases which intertwine with the themes of this poem; I think of the phrases “Coming of Age” and “Coming of Winter”.  Both of these ideas tell a story with different details and time-frames, but the life-lesson it seems to tell is of the same moral.

                A coming of age story is one of growing older and learning life lessons; the young are less wise than the old, who have lived a life of previous ignorance and arrogance. “Though leaves are many, the root is one;” shows a comparison of lies and truth. The leaves represent lies, being many and often, while the root represents truth, being singular. From this viewpoint, I see the single truth about life being displayed as death, understood this way by the author’s use of the word “wither”. This comparison between the parallel concrete and abstract ideas is emphasized with the alliteration between “leaves” and “lying”, and the similar phonetics of “root” and “truth”. The ignorance is shown by “the lying days of..youth”, while the arrogance of “youth” is explained in the image of the tree “[swaying its] leaves and flowers in the sun;”. Here is yet another comparison of ideas between the words youth and flowers. When thinking of youth and coming of age, I think of the preteen years and puberty. This stage of life can sometimes be referred to as ‘flowering’, thus “flowers”.

                The coming of winter is an idea of the changing of season; metaphorically it is the idea again of time, but instead of being a lifetime, in this light it is of stages in life. When understanding ‘The Coming of Wisdom with Time’ in this way, I comprehend the leaves and flowers as symbols of prosperity and happiness. Trees sprout their leaves and bloom their flowers in the spring and summer, times of sunshine and joy and freedom. The branches of the tree are full and colorful, distracting from the plain, wrinkled, and rough branches, trunk, and “root”. The tree sways in the sun, showing off everything it has; pretending to be something possibly much more magnificent than what it is. When its leaves begin to “wither”, however, with the approach of winter, and fall to the ground, revealing the dark branches underneath, the truth is revealed. The real person behind all of the possessions and assets is shown to the world when we have lost all that we have or are enduring a difficult time in our life. This poem communicates that possessions and beauty are in a sense only lies, and it may be a harsh truth [of who we are] revealed when all of it is stripped away.

                This poem presents a beautiful moral that all can take something from, be it the lifelong lesson, the stage of life lesson, or simply the solemn-yet-beautiful image of a tree’s spring season in contrast with winter. The solemn tone adds such emotion to the lines, while the a-b-a-b rhyme-scheme allows a melodic flow of beauty to follow the image. I especially enjoyed this poem for its ability to be applied to different experiences, ages and lengths of time, all the while maintaining a very similar moral for each different idea. This was a very successfully written poem.