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The Four Ages of Man

Pilar, a new friend, has revived the ever lasting poem in me brain.  It remains there partly because of a disastrous trial of mine once, to improve my memory.   But it's a nice piece nevertheless. It's a poem that struck me as being simple, sooo true, yet ironic (or even sarcastic) in only 8 lines of text!!    Here it is:
  The Four Ages of Man
Yeats
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.
Amazing is that I could as well project it on the life of á man as well as on the life of all mankind (through evolution and with the apocalypse at the end). Euh, no ... I do not believe in God, nor do I disbeleive It/Him/Her!!  I am just happy without needing to decide on it.
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Comments

Anonymous said…
hey Ruby,
think it is possible to have sth like an apocalypse with or without sth godlike. Humankind is perfectly able to do the job itself. Not implying that it has to be like that.
Difficult question after all. Only time will tell. Dead anyway then. Hopefully that is. Not that I would not care. Face one's very own egoism.
greetz
pondering Pilly
7/19/2004 8:46 PM
Anonymous said…
Just read your mail.

"...apocalypse at the end).
Euh, no ... I do not believe in God, nor do I disbeleive It/Him/Her!! I am just happy without needing to decide on it."
Maybe I misinterpredted that. --> Apocalypse is a term from the bible, yeah? Then in the next line you say, nothing to do with God for me.
Me replying that God is not necessary for the apocalypse, so that 'no God' would be no problem.
Warning next time I'll write an essay not to be misunderstood ;-).
P.S. Not you reproaching me with writing that, but I reproaching you by writing that, was the question.
9/03/2004 1:30 PM
Ruby said…
I just thought when you said "think it is possible to have sth like an apocalypse with or without sth godlike" was meant as a question or as irony, not a confirmation.
If it is a confirmation after all, it's actually a big relief bc I know you better than I thought than!!
Jippee! :-)
Tell me if it is (a confirmation), than I'll give you a surprise !! gnifl
9/04/2004 1:40 PM
Anonymous said…
I reckon it is only one letter that led to that misinterpretation. A letter I've left out due to
laziness. That's just the 'I' in front of 'think'.
Luckily that was not the trigger for war in this
case.
p
9/08/2004 1:24 PM
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