This is Colin Farrell reading W.B. Yeats’ When You Are Old for Discover Ireland. This poem is gut-wrenching enough on the page, but add Farrell’s straight stare and conviction – like he’s making it up as he goes – and I just want to go jump off a bridge because life is so hard and wonderful.
Another of my favourite Yeats poems while you’re still reeling:
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams
Irish love.
