Looking for a poem about getting older for 40th birthday

[terry.wong.ca]

Hi I am searching for a poem about getting older.

I was looking for something that reflects on aging without being trite.

Thanks!

[JBI]

I guess I'll keep away from Landor's on my 40th birthday; that one is more suitable for an epitath. How about

Sonnet 73

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

William Shakespeare.


You forgot to specify your gender, so I assumed you were female.

[quasimodo1]

This might be overdoing it but how about William Butler Yeats..."When You are Old"

[mayneverhave]

Also try Yeats' "Lines written in Dejection"

When have I last looked on
The round green eyes and the long wavering bodies
Of the dark leopards of the moon?
All the wild witches, those most noble ladies,
For all their broom-sticks and their tears,
Their angry tears, are gone.
The holy centaurs of the hills are vanished;
I have nothing but the embittered sun;
Banished heroic mother moon and vanished,
And now that I have come to fifty years
I must endure the timid sun.