The Ages of Man

Nina Salaman

1910

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 in 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.)

Credits

Nina Salaman, “The Ages of Man,” Songs of Exile by Hebrew Poets, trans. Nina Ruth Davis Salaman (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1901), pp. 119–25.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 7.

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Nina Salaman

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