Ageing is an agony

From The Spectator, 12 October, 1991.

Ageing
by Anonymous (18th century)
translated from Korean by Graeme Wilson

Ageing is an agony.

Just white hairs, I'd thought;
But now that teeth are falling out
And hearing is a sort
Of fought-off deafness, it seems nothing
That my hair is white.

And she looks at me, she looks at me,
My darling of the night
As though some bitter cucumber
Were sullying her sight.