Vanoggend, drie dinge oor oud word — en oor ouer wordende mans spesifiek: ‘n Artikel van my oor Bob Dylan se 70ste verjaardag het gister in Rapport verskyn. Danie Marais verjaar vandag — ek sal nie sy ouderdom verklap nie, maar hy is gewis nie meer 39 nie… En Pieter Odendaal raps “die ouer garde” oor die vingers in sy jongste (!) bloginskrywing. Dus dra ek graag William Butler Yeats se “Why Should Not Old Men Be Mad?” op aan al die ou en ouerwordende mans wat hier lees! Soos Bob Dylan sing: “Time and love has branded me with its claw…”
Why Should Not Old Men Be Mad? – deur William Butler Yeats
Why should not old men be mad?
Some have known a likely lad
That had a sound fly-fisher’s wrist
Turn to a drunken journalist;
A girl that knew all Dante once
Live to bear children to a dunce;
A Helen of social welfare dream,
Climb on a wagonette to scream.
Some think it a matter of course that chance
Should starve good men and bad advance,
That if their neighbours figured plain,
As though upon a lighted screen,
No single story would they find
Of an unbroken happy mind,
A finish worthy of the start.
Young men know nothing of this sort,
Observant old men know it well;
And when they know what old books tell
And that no better can be had,
Know why an old man should be mad.
Some have known a likely lad
That had a sound fly-fisher’s wrist
Turn to a drunken journalist;
A girl that knew all Dante once
Live to bear children to a dunce;
A Helen of social welfare dream,
Climb on a wagonette to scream.
Some think it a matter of course that chance
Should starve good men and bad advance,
That if their neighbours figured plain,
As though upon a lighted screen,
No single story would they find
Of an unbroken happy mind,
A finish worthy of the start.
Young men know nothing of this sort,
Observant old men know it well;
And when they know what old books tell
And that no better can be had,
Know why an old man should be mad.