Yeats creates a speaker watching a woman’s former glory fade from public memory. Once, her mere appearance drew crowds and dimmed old men’s eyes. Now the speaker feels like a lone courtier lingering at a gypsy camp, murmuring about a majesty no one else notices. There is tenderness and isolation in that role: he insists her face and a heart made sweet by laughter still remain, yet what he records is the vanished aura, the thing that is gone. The final image sharpens the ache—a future crowd will walk the same street without knowing that someone once moved there like a burning cloud. The mood is elegiac and slightly haunted, full of awe for past radiance and the loneliness of being its only witness.
Fallen Majesty — Summary
Although crowds gathered once if she but showed her face, And even old men's eyes grew dim, this hand alone, Like some last courtier at a gypsy camping place, Babbling of fallen majesty, records what's gone.
The lineaments, a heart that laughter has made sweet, These, these remain, but I record what's gone. A crowd Will gather, and not know it walks the very street Whereon a thing once walked that seemed a burning cloud.