'Growing Old' by Matthew Arnold - (poem about aging)

Full text of the poem below

"Growing Old"
by Matthew Arnold

What is it to grow old?
Is it to lose the glory of the form,
The luster of the eye?
Is it for beauty to forego her wreath?
—Yes, but not this alone.

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 loosely strung?

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.

’Tis not to see the world
As from a height, with rapt prophetic eyes,
And heart profoundly stirred;
And weep, and feel the fullness of the past,
The years that are no more.

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.

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.

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.

~~ Credits ~~
Poem recited by Michael Moerman
Cinematography by Nate Brice
Edited Mike Gioia

~~ The Blank Verse ~~

[birdlynn]

Beautiful. Thank you, for providing the lyrics too.

[anonymousoppar]

Very beautiful, despite my ignorance in poetry...

[pascalbercker]

I very much like this poem - and count Matthew Arnold as one of my favorite poets - (but you can't just simply omit the last enigmatic stanza). I used to like Tennyson's poem Ulysses - who had a very romantic idealized notion about growing old. But as I grow old myself I find Matthew Arnold's the truer poem.

[justicegusting]

At this moment in 2024 I have made 74 circuits around the sun.
Mr. Arnold crushes this chapter of the human condition.

[abigailbernard]

Hello, i am geriatric student and i will be doing an Oral Presentation on this video. Thank You, and this is a great video i love it.

[andydogdixon]

I’m 65 in 125 days from today 🎉😮⏳⏱ And at the moment I am OK with this.
We will see what the future brings…❤

[zh]

Thank you so much for this beautiful and realistic poetry.
I have used it in my kindergarten show, where kids were dressed up and acting as old people, and this poetry was playing in the background.

[AudreyGreathouse]

I clicked on this video in my mid-twenties. I feel sixty now.

[katia]

beautifully recited but - why have you eliminated the last stanza...?

[whitneymacdonald]

This is lovely but I wonder why you committed the final verse:
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.

[dsantamaria]

Growing old is lovely, if it didn't hurt so much ..🤪

[katia]

as Bette Davis said more prosaically: "Old age ain't for sissies"