What is it to grow old?

Is it to lose the glory of the form,

The lustre of the eye?

Is it for beauty to forego her wreath?

Yes, but not for this alone.

什么為之老去?

是失去了引以為傲的形貌?

雙眸神采淡去?

亦或是美麗的容顏卸去了桂冠?

是的，然而遠非僅此。

Is it to feel our strength -

Not our bloom only, but our strength -decay?

Is it to feel each limb

Grow stiffer, every function less exact,

Each nerve more weakly strung?

是感受到自身的力量

不止青春不再，而且是氣力的衰退?

是深覺肢體日益僵硬

動作遲緩

神經松弛萎謝?

Yes, this, and more! but not,

Ah, 'tis not what in youth we dreamed 'twould be!

'Tis not to have our life

Mellowed and softened as with sunset-glow,

A golden day's decline!

是的，就是這樣，還有，但并非

哦，這非你我年輕時所幻想的老年!

我們的生命沒有變得

如同夕陽的光一般成熟柔和

如一日余暉的熹微!

Tis not to see the world

As from a height, with rapt prophetic eyes,

And heart profoundly stirred;

And weep, and feel the fulness of the past,

The years that are no more!

看著世界

不再自高處以狂喜預言的眼

心不易深深撼動

哭泣，或感受逝去歲月的完滿

時之往矣

It is to spend long days

And not once feel that we were ever young.

It is to add, immured

In the hot prison of the present, month

To month with weary pain.

長日漫漫

未覺自己曾擁有年輕

它在歲月中一點點地積累，凝固

于當下的囚籠里，無數日月

增加的虛弱疼痛

It is to suffer this,

And feel but half, and feebly, what we feel:

Deep in our hidden heart

Festers the dull remembrance of a change,

But no emotion none.

它是忍受著所有這一切

以不完全的心，微弱的，去感受一切

在心靈的深處

那些枯燥記憶已慢慢腐化

不遺一絲情感——絲毫都沒有

It is last stage of all

When we are frozen up within, and quite

The phantom of ourselves,

To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost

Which blamed the living man.

終于來到了人生的最后舞臺

當內心凍結，惟剩下

自身的幽靈走動

我們聽到世界歡迎著死神的到來

他總譴責著生之眾人