SOME VIEWS ABOUT OLD AGE

 

SOME VIEWS ABOUT OLD AGE

There are contrasting views about old age. The modern views are also different from those of past ages. English poet-dramatist William Shakespeare (1564-1616) ends his poem “The Seven Ages of Man” with these words: Last scene of all, /‘That ends this strange eventful history,/ Is second childishness, and mere oblivion,/ Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing. “This is not a bright view of old age.   

            Ulysses the hero of  the poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson  (1809-1892} says: “Free hearts, free foreheads---you and I are old;/Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;/Death closes all : but something ere the end,/Some work of noble note, may yet be done,/ not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.”

            British poet Robert Browning  (1812-1869) who was most famous for his dramatic monologues says in ‘Rabbi Ben Ezra’ :

            Grow old along with me! / The best is yet to be,/ The last of life, for which the first was made:/ Our times are in His hand/Who saith “A whole I planned,/Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid.”

             To conclude, an irrefutable fact of life : Age does not depend upon years, but upon temperament and health. Some men are born old, and some never grow so.  

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G.R.Kanwal

28^{th May 2024}