The Coming of Wisdom with Time

The Coming of Wisdom With Time by William Butler Yeats

though the leaves are many, the root is one;
Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;
Now I may wither into the truth.

So when I first saw this poem I had no idea what it was talking about but when I sat down to do my blog I was looking through my choices and read this one more time. It came to me!

"though the leaves are many, the root is one;"
I saw the root as ones character and the leaves as the characteristics that made up the character.

"Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;"
So here I thought of lying as one of the leaves but then this leaf over powers all the other leaves. So really the one who lies lives a lie.

"Now I may wither into the truth."
So now when the truth comes into the life of the one who lies, their life withers. All of their leaves wither to reveal the root or the character.