This collection of Yeats' love poems starts with youthful and romantic idealism, followed by disillusionment in middle age when Yeats' style also becomes more direct, austere and forceful. The poet's comments on his loves in later life are particularly evocative and provide deeply moving portraits of people and places. They combine much of the beauty he created and imparted to the Celtic Revival with his later outspoken, sardonic treatment of sexuality. From his youth through to old age, these love poems reflect the developing mind of a genius, who even up to his death was still capable of remaking himself, his image and his ideas with compelling immediacy.