A Prayer for Old Age: Wayne Mergler

Posted At : December 15, 2008 1:00 AM
Related Categories: Poetry

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From "A Prayer for Old Age," a poem by William Butler Yeats, appearing in his Collected Poems, with the author's final revisions.

Contributed and read by Wayne Mergler: "I have reached the age when this poem seems to speak directly to me." Wayne is a retired English teacher, a writer, and a former columnist of the Anchorage Daily News. He has lived in Alaska for forty years. His favorite website (at least one he can tell you about) is www.imdb.com (the Internet Movie Database).

"A Prayer for Old Age" by William Butler Yeats

"God guard me from those thoughts men think
In the mind alone;
He that sings a lasting song
Thinks in a marrow bone;

From all that makes a wise old man
That can be praised of all;
O what am I that I should not seem
For the song's sake a fool?

I pray -- for fashion's word is out
And prayer comes round again--
That I may seem, though I die old,
A foolish, passionate man."