Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
What is the worst of woes that wait on age?
What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow?
To view each loved one blotted from life’s page,
And be alone on earth, as I am now. Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
Years steal
Fire from the mind as vigour from the limb;
And life’s enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim. ibid.
My hair is grey, but not with years,
Nor grew it white
In a single night,
As men's have grown from sudden fears. Lord Byron, The Prisoner of Chillon
Old-age, a second child, by Nature cursed
With more and greater evils than the first,
Weak, sickly, full of pains; in ev’ry breath
Railing at life, and yet afraid of death. Charles Churchill 1731-64, English poet, Gotham
When we’re worn,
Hacked hewn with constant service, thrown aside
To rust in peace, or rot in hospitals. Thomas Southerne, The Loyal Brother, 1682
There are no limits to the ugliness of old men. Dorian Gray 2009 starring Ben Barnes & Colin Firth & Ben Chaplin & Rachel Hurd-Wood & Johnny Harris & Rebecca Hall & Emilia Fox & Fiona Shaw & Maryan d'Abo & Caoline Goodall et al, director Oliver Parker, Firth
Oh, if only Jupiter would give me back my past years. Virgil, Aenied
All the best days of life slip away from us poor mortals first; illnesses and dreary old age and pain sneak up, and the fierceness of harsh death snatches away. Virgil, Georgics
People like you and me, thou mortal of course like everyone else, do not grow old no matter how long we live ... [we] never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born. Albert Einstein
A man’s only as old as the woman he feels. Groucho Marx
Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle; Old Age a regret. Benjamin Disraeli, Coningsby
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And stain sandals, and say we’ve got no money for butter. Jenny Joseph, Warning, 1974
‘You are old, Father William,’ the young man said, ‘And your hair has become very white; And yet you incessantly stand on your head – Do you think, at your age, it is right?’ Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
I’ll tell thee everything I can:
There’s little to relate.
I saw an aged, aged man,
A-sitting on a gate. Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
From the earliest times the old have rubbed it into the young that they are wiser than they, and before the young had discovered what nonsense this was they were old too, and it profited them to carry on the imposture. W Somerset Maugham, Cakes and Ale, 1930
Here I am, an old man in a dry month
Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain. T S Eliot, 1888-1965, Gerontion
I grow old ... I grow old ...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. T S Eliot, The Long Song of J Alfred Prufrock, 1917
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made. Robert Browning, Rabbi Ben Ezra, 1864
But years hath done this wrong,
To make me write too much, and live too long. Samuel Daniel, 1563-1619, Philotas, 1605
Our earth in 1969
Is not the planet I call mine,
The world, I mean, that gives me strength
To hold off chaos at arm’s length,
My Eden landscapes and their climes
Are constructs from Edwardian times,
When bath-rooms took up lots of space,
And, before eating, one said grace.
The automobile, the aeroplane,
Are useful gadgets, but profane:
The enginery of which I dream
Is moved by water or by steam ... W H Auden, Doggerel by a Senior Citizen
Here I sit, alone and sixty,
Bald, and fat, and full of sin
Cold the seat and loud the cistern,
As I read the Harpic tin. Alan Bennett, Place Names of China, 1966, last verse
Crookbacked, he was, tooth-shaken, and blear-eyed,
Went on three feet, and sometime crept on four,
With old lame bones that rattled by his side,
His scalp all pilled and he will eld forlore;
His withered fist still knocking at Death’s door,
Fumbling and driveling as he draws his breath;
For brief, the shape and messenger of Death. Thomas Sackville, The Mirror for Magistrates, 1563
There are so few who can grow old with a good grace. Richard Steele
O joy! that in our embers
Is something that doth live,
That nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!
The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benediction. William Wordsworth, Ode, Intimations of Immortality, 1807
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,
To perish never. ibid.
The time is not remote, when I
Must in the course of nature die:
When I foresee my special friends
Will try to find their private ends:
Though it is hardly understood
Which way my death can do them good;
Yet thus, methinks, I hear ’em speak;
See how the Dean begins to break,
Poor Gentleman, he droops apace,
You plainly find it in his face;
That old vertigo in his head
Will never leave him till he’s dead;
Besides, his memory decays,
He recollects not what he says,
He cannot call his friends to mind,
Forgets the place where last he dined,
Plies you with stories o’er and o’er –
He told them fifty times before.
How does he fancy we can sit,
To hear his out-of-fashioned wit?
But he takes up with younger folks,
Who for his wine will bear his jokes:
Faith, he must make his stories shorter,
Or change his comrades once a quarter;
In half the time, he talks them round,
There must another set be found. Jonathan Swift, Verses on the Death of Doctor Swift
Every man desires to live long; but no man would be old. Jonathan Swift, Thoughts on Various Subjects
The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom. H L Mencken
To live beyond eight is an exaggeration, almost an excess. Antonio Callado, Brazilian novelist
I don’t think I’ll be around when I am eighty. There’s other things to do besides sitting around waiting for eighty to come along. Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child
Like dolmens round my childhood, the old people. John Montague, 1972