Symbol Analysis
- Just as the speaker and the two women become quiet at the mention of love, he notices the moon "in the trembling blue-green of the sky" (31). As he says in lines 32-33, it seems worn, like a seashell "washed by time's waters." This mirrors how he feels when considering his love life, which time has negatively affected. The poem ends in line 29 when the speaker says he feels "as weary-hearted as that hollow moon." In this way, Yeats is using the moon as a symbol of the heart, worn out by time.