OLD AGE
by: Crates
 HESE shriveled
sinews and this bending frame,
- The workmanship of Time's strong hand proclaim;
- Skilled to reverse whate'er the gods create,
- And make that crooked which they fashion straight.
- Hard choice for man, to die -- or else to be
- That tottering, wretched, wrinkled thing you see:
- Age then we all prefer; for age we pray,
- And travel on to life's last, lingering day;
- Then sinking slowly down from worse to worse,
- Find heaven's extorted boon our greatest curse.
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This English translation, by Richard
Cumberland, of "Old Age" is reprinted from Greek
Poets in English Verse. Ed. William Hyde Appleton. Cambridge:
The Riverside Press, 1893. |
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