THE FOUR AGES OF MAN

William Butler Yeats, 1934

He with body waged a fight;

But body won; it walks upright.

Then he struggled with the heart;

Innocence and peace depart.

Then he struggled with the mind;

His proud heart he left behind.

Now his wars on God begin;

At stroke of midnight God shall win.

IDEA | POETRY

A poem that so perfectly encapsulates the human experience. From the physicality of youth to the emotional endurance of adolescence to the intellectual pursuits of adulthood, and finally, to the existential battle waged before death. I’m aware that no two lives are the same, but upon first encountering this poem, I couldn’t help but latch onto a certain undeniable truth.

Publishers

The poem was originally published in Poetry Vol.XLV, No. III, a magazine of verse edited by Harriet Monroe in December 1934.

William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats was an Irish literary icon whose words transcended the page and fed directly into the identity of a nation. He theorised time as a series of intersecting gyres, a recurrent swirling flow.