On Old Age (2007)

Another autumn evening sets; the breath
Of winter settles swiftly on the lips
With mortal epithets; the season of death,
Of ice and stillness, dreamlessness, that slips
Upon us almost unexpectedly.
In spring there is no word for cold,
The summer dreams in green and gold,
But now in autumn grip we find ourselves grown old!
And winter rushes in relentlessly!
Then old age, blunter of passion’s edge,
Usurps the throne of youth’s virility,
He ruins beauty, steals her privilege,
And dulls the palate’s pleasure for the bold.
Old age – death’s captain – he whom many fear,
Whose eyes, they whisper, prophesy the end is near.

But why should we fear old age? There is a place
For every season and human pleasure.
First there is spring, when the farmer’s plough will trace
Deep furrows, black and rich, and later measure
The tiny grains that soon push up their stalks.
Then with the rains on which they feed,
Up spring the shoots with frantic speed,
Hoping to grow more swiftly than the stifling weed!
Later, his field the farmer tends and walks,
The sun attains the summit of his course;
Beneath this heat and care the earth unlocks
Her hidden wealth; the stalk of wheat out-pours
Its laden fruit, it trails and then it leads
In the last breeze of August. The time to reap
Draws near, the end to which the spring and summer sweep.

Here at the close of life’s checkered journey
In the cool calm of autumn’s rich embrace,
The traveler, wearied by the day’s hurly burly,
Finds quiet repose in the evening’s grace.
Long is the voyage and far, far afield
We wander, beholding many things:
The relics of statesmen, priests and kings,
The instruments of history, which through them sings!
The journey’s end approaches, what does it yield?
Is memory doomed to die with the dying day?
What was it for, when the funeral bells have pealed,
And the dust of our living has winnowed away?
Life begets life, the past in the future rings:
Each human, good or evil, foul or fair,
Comes to this, fed by hope or fed on by despair.

Abundantly teeming autumn! The year’s
Proud banquet, its celebration of the soil.
The wealth is heaped, no centimeter clear,
At last it is covered, this table of our toil,
With fresh delights: fruit of the vanished petal.
And though the boisterous summer’s gone,
Still, something of it lingers on,
Within the young, who dash about the leaf-strewn lawn.
Now, at the dusk of the year, the aged settle
Into the soft-voiced realm of memory;
The tumultuousness of life’s great kettle,
Boiling and screeching, now murmurs distantly.
They follow their unruly youth; a dawn,
New hope, they see at which their hearts excite,
Though they are doomed to pass into the longest night.

Youth! The worship of all who ever live,
The crest of life, the regent of desire,
So fleeting, like the hind whom chase we give,
Which speeds the swifter as our bodies tire.
Insatiate king, these are your sacrifice,
Who think to slake your quenchless thirst,
Who prize your whimsy as the first:
These are the souls most harried and most cursed!
Wisdom and youth – like fire they are, and ice;
Like Furies, pleasures drive our minds to madness,
Good sense becomes a whipping boy, and dice
The tyrants of contentment and of sadness.
Happy is he whose age denies this worst
Enslaver; master of himself, he’ll be
The incessant friend of truth and harmony.

This temperor of o’er-exuberant mettle,
Age brings us strength of a different kind:
The body fails, but thought is in best fettle,
Which culminates when all else has declined.
And what could be better when the mind is free
Than scores of youngsters thronging round,
Whose thirst for knowledge has no bound,
Who love the dignity with which they each are crowned?
In us there shines a fine nobility,
A beauty higher than the outward show;
As present, past and future are not three,
But one, a beauty which may ceaseless grow
And what of can perish when thoughts compound
With thoughts and thoughts? Most happy is the one
Who in those upturned looks beholds the good he’s done.

At last the autumn dwindles into frost,
The fields lay bare, the harvest hour ends,
The motions of life decline and then are lost;
Yet to his work the farmer still attends.
For though the outside world must seem a tomb
While winter rests upon the soil,
He will within the garner toil
In wise anticipation of the coming moil.
How proper that the seed of winter’s womb
Is autumn’s gift for vernal promises,
And summer purposed by the dying bloom
Of autumn! Life is made of kindnesses,
Not cruelties – these are but a fragile foil;
We make them what they are. Be happy: live,
That when you’re old you’ll have your greatest gifts to give.