A child of one or two can get
around
By crawling like a snake on the
ground.
A ten-year old frolics in glee
amid
His elders, as among the goats
the kid.
At twenty years a man’s on
pleasure bent;
To captivate the girls his whole
intent.
A man on thirty years is at his
height;
His looks, black hair, and
strength are his delight.
When forty comes upon a man he
tend
To spend his time among his aging
friends.
He puts his youthful daydreams
out of sight,
When fifty turns his hair and
beard to white.
A man becomes obsessed with
mortal fears
On finding himself arrived at
sixty years.
From sixty to seventy, groaning
with age and gout,
He sits among the elderly devout.
The eighty-years old man is
scarce aware that Time
Has caught him in its mighty
snare.
At ninety years a man lives in a
daze;
He can’t tell plowing times from
harvest days.
A hundred-year old man is but a
freak;
They come to stare at such a
queer antique.
A corpse is something everybody
lathes,
With worms and maggots in its
burial clothes.
And so laments and dirges I
indite
To mourn my life and body day and
night.
-Shmuel HaNagid
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