Endure what life God gives and ask no longer span; <br />Cease to remember the delights of youth, travel-wearied aged man; <br />Delight becomes death-longing if all longing else be vain. <br /> <br />Even from that delight memory treasures so, <br />Death, despair, division of families, all entanglements of mankind grow, <br />As that old wandering beggar and these God-hated children know. <br /> <br />In the long echoing street the laughing dancers throng, <br />The bride is carried to the bridegroom's chamber through torchlight and tumultuous song; <br />I celebrate the silent kiss that ends short life or long. <br /> <br />Never to have lived is best, ancient writers say; <br />Never to have drawn the breath of life, never to have looked into the eye of day; <br />The second best's a gay goodnight and quickly turn away.<br /><br />William Butler Yeats<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-man-young-and-old-xi-from-oedipus-at-colonus/
