On growing old

 

Westminster Abbey

(written on the funeral of Dean Arthur Stanley)

 

Matthew Arnold

 

How easy is a soul that’s well!

How easy is a soul that’s free!

Though warm in youth, though bright in cheer,

It keeps, in age, its lightness still.

 

The spirits of the wise sit silent,

And watch the years go by;

They see the nations rise and fall,

And calmly let the tumult fly.

 

Yet when the summons comes at last,

And one is taken from the rest,

The living pause beside the dead,

And question Fate within the breast.

 

Beneath the Abbey’s ancient towers

The mourners pass in ordered line;

The great, the honoured of the land,

Walk grave, composed, beneath the sign.

 

Two men there were, of might and fame,

Whose counsels long the realm had swayed;

Side by side they passed along,

In thought profound, in step delayed.

 

They spoke no word — but each one knew

The thought that stirred the other’s breast:

How long, each asked within his heart,

Before I, too, shall join the rest?

 

 

"Two men there were, of might and fame" 

Harveywetdog explains

This poem has always held a place in my memory since I studied it as part of my English Literature GCSE O Level back in the late sixties. It has taken me a while to track it down, mainly because I thought it was written following the death of The Duke of Wellington, but at last Microsoft AI has come up with the goods.

The statesmen are Gladstone and Disraeli, though Arnold never names them outright in the poem.

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Harveywetdog/Author - David Robinson CEng FIET 

David spent approaching 50 years in Her Majesty's Electricity Supply Industry before retiring

He was part of the highly successful design team on the Sizewell B Nuclear Power Station Project before spending 25 years producing safety cases to keep our aging AGR fleet generating for the good of the nation

He is responsible for the Harveywetdog YouTube Channel which he maintains as an outlet for his creative talents

David has twice experienced blood cancer treatment but absolutely refuses to be a victim

All views are of course his own but might be influenced by the medication he's had to take