That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees,
Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
Thus wrote W B Yeats, when he was sixty-two—a sort of a complaint, perforce, as he was growing old. Today, things haven’t truly changed. Or, have they? Maybe, not. So much so, we could conjure up images of such a classical Yeatsian metaphor. Like the abundant sexuality of our young populace, the profusion of city folks, if not fish tribes, and the neurosis in our society—”whatever is begotten, born, and dies.” Agreed that the great Irishman was growing old himself—but, in reality, the dissimilitude betwixt sexuality and the ageless had been a fundamental component in his thought process since he was young—at heart and in spirit. One that is akin to the India of our age, or the times we live in today, including COVID-19, our surging insensitivities, or inadequacies, or befuddled leadership, as it were.
Yeats’ idea of sensual music, of course, was something that more than meets the eye, or the ear, and/or conventional thought and wisdom. It is also an enormously disquieting facet of what is often overlooked in the careless pursuit of aggression on the basis of ideology too. This may not so much relate to Yeats’ allusion to the word, intellect, or practical intellect—the reasoning power of science. What Yeats tried to connect was the spiritual intellect. This is something that is imperishable, or permanent.
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