Songs of Exile/The Ages of Man
THE AGES
OF
MAN
The Author of The Ages of Man is not known. There are several Hebrew variants of the poem, which, without convincing reason, has been ascribed to Abraham Ibn Ezra. The present English translation has been made from the text contained in a manuscript brought by Mr. Elkan N. Adler from the Cairo Genizah.
The Ages of Man
LET but the son of earth
Remember from his birth
That in the end
He shall return:
As at his birth he was,
So shall he be.
"Arise and prosper," say ye unto him
Of five years, whose desires rise up apace
Like the awakening sun on regions dim.
He hath his mother's breast for resting place,
And moveth not—
His father's shoulders for his chariot.
(Yet in the end
He shall return:
As at his birth he was,
So shall he be.)
How urge ye him of ten years with intent
Toward instruction? Yet a little space,
And he will grow and find his chastisement.
Speak unto him with tender tone of grace:
Joy shall he rouse
For them that bare him, for his father's house.
(For in the end
He shall return:
As at his birth he was,
So shall he be.)
How sweet the days to him of twenty years!
Swift as a hart he leapeth to and fro
Over the hills; and scorns reproof, nor hears
The voice of teachers. But a graceful doe,
Goodly and fair,
This is the portion for him and his snare.
(Yet in the end
He shall return:
As at his birth he was,
So shall he be.)
At thirty years into a woman's hands
He falleth; rise and look on him and see;
Behold him now caught fast within the strands;
The arrows pierce him round; the want shall be
Now of his life
Only the wants of children and of wife.
(But in the end
He shall return:
As at his birth he was,
So shall he be.)
He wanders forth subdued who shall attain
To forty years; he runs his way:—behind
The light companions of his youth remain;
And evil be it or sweet, yet shall he find
Joy in his lot,
Firm by his work, his charge forsaking not.
(Yet tn the end
He shall return:
As at his birth he was,
So shall he be.)
The days of vanity—days nothing worth—
Remembers he of fifty years, and mourns
Because the days of mourning come; and earth
And all the glory of the world he scorns,
Bearing the fear
Lest his own time indeed be drawing near.
(For in the end
He shall return:
As at his birth he was,
So shall he be.)
Ask: what befalls when sixty years are his?
Then have his muscles grown like root and bar
Set to his work—sufficing but for this
And rooted that they bend now but so far;
And never they
Shall move again to rouse him for the fray.
(For in the end
He shall return:
As at his birth he was,
So shall he be.)
If into seventy years his life-way wends,
His words are heard no longer; 'tis his fate
To go unheeded. Now upon his friends
Only a burden, he becomes a weight
On his own soul,
And on the staff that bears him to his goal.
(For in the end
He shall return:
As at his birth he was,
So shall he be.)
At eighty years, then is he but a care
Upon his sons; his heart is no more his,
Nor his thoughts with him; only he is there,
Scorned of his neighbors. Yea, his portion is
Gall to the brim,
And wormwood is the morsel now for him.
(For in the end
He shall return:
As at his birth he was,
So shall he be.)
And after—he is even as one dead.
Happy the man who deemeth his own part
That of a stranger who is quickly fled:
Who hath no contemplation in his heart
Nor thought nor sense
But his soul's after-life and recompense.
(For in the end
He shall return:
As at his birth he was,
So shall he be.)