LIFE STAGES

(A quote from William Shakespeare’s play “As you like it”)

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Muling and puking in the nurse’s arms,..

Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel,
And shining morning face,
Creeping like a snail
Unwillingly to school.

And then the lover,
Sighing like a furnace, with woeful ballard
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow.

Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like a pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the canon’s mouth.

And then the justice.
In fair round belly, with good capon lin’d,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instance;
And so he plays his part. 

The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav’d a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turn again towards childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound.

Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
In second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans.. Everything.

A challenge…. Write a poem/story of your own life journey 😊

 Mine would start like this: “There was a girl named Margaret Ann, but everyone called her Margie. She lived in a small town called Waterfall Boven (meaning town above the waterfall)…. Etc.