12 OCTOBER 1991, Page 32

Senility

To say that it's sad to be old, That is indeed to betray Dodderiness, the dotard's whining Loss of the human way.

For all men know their nature.

We are not earth or sky, Nor rocks nor rivers, deathless things. We know that we must die.

Yet years, of themselves, are nothings. Only when men begin To bleat of their sadness, that is when Translated from the Korean by Graeme Wilson