Glass and Beautiful Old Age

Old age is a time in which one looks forward to enjoying the rest of life without troubles and worries, as one would have lived-by the popular belief "life to the fullest." However, old age may come as happiness to others such as DH Laurence who is convinced that Old age is beautiful. Nevertheless others such as Thomas Hardy are unwilling to accept the cold hard truth that old age is upon him. The "Beautiful Old Age" and "I look into my glass" both addresses the subject of old age from different aspects in which one praises it and the other resent it. Both poems are parallel poems as one is the opposite of another. However, the different structure, form, language and tone used differentiate the two poems apart.

The author of "Beautiful Old Age" depicts old age as something that is "lovely", wonderful, calm and undisturbed. He appreciates and depends on time that will gracefully make him age well at an old age. Unlike him, Thomas views old age as being the loss of his youthfulness, "my wasting skin" and is rather naïve about it, and not facing reality. The theme in "Beautiful Old age" is a sense of longing for old age as DH Lawrence views this life as at old age is more simplistic rather than complicated, "to be full of peace that comes with experience." The experience in this case would be having had learned so much in life that now he takes a backseat and be at peace with all he has learned and experienced in life. The audience would get the impression that he is dull of wonder and excitement about this new and final phase that he's ready to practice. The theme in "I look into my glass" is in complete contrast as it's a dark realization that Hardy's is changing physically which is affecting him emotionally. Hardy reflects himself on a mirror in which he grasps how his skin, in old age, has become drooped and wrinkly. However the "wasting" implies the contrast of meaning that skin is just the outward signs of the "wasting", that is decay, of the body as it nears death from old age.

The voice in "I look into my glass" is Hardy himself as he refers to himself as "I" which shows the flow of emotions in which the author is feeling which are later expressed in the poem. Hardy continues to refer to himself as "I" and his emotions had wasted away with age then he would be "undistrest." The audience knows that this is a phase that Hardy is currently going through which makes the poem more powerful as he reveals the emotions during the present time and him doing the thinks that he is describing such as "look[ing] into [his] glass." The voice in "Beautiful Old age" is Lawrence, however with a less harsh attitude such as Hardy's and a more free will excited attitude as Lawrence is looking forward to old age.

The form in which "beautiful old age" is written is free verse which it gives it a more flow to it than that of structural order and rhythm and instead, the slow and steady pace, brings out the calm and quiet feelings that the old people experience. Also the structure of the poem has five stanzas but no definite number of sentences in each stanza, which shows that old age is not structural. "I look into my eyes" however has a more structural format with rhyming which is traditional meter which implies that old age brings a more formal system in his life. Also the length on the poem is 3 stanzas which is short to represent the life of an old man who won't get to live that long, "But Time to make me grieve," refers to the passing of the years that have taken him from a youth to an old man, and further "to make me grieve" assigns "Time."

The ideas and message conveyed in both poems are that Hardy reflecting upon himself and coming to the realization that old age is coming, however, Lawrence has created a more utopia universe in which he believes that old age is beautiful and that he'll enjoy his time as an old man. Furthermore, the deeper meaning of "I look into my glass" is about how he's body will decay and will no longer be of use. Hardy realizes this and goes on to state, "When God would come to pass, my heart had shrunk as thin!" Hardy is asking God to kill him because his heart is now as thin as the skin on his face. "Come to pass" meaning let him pass away. His heart shrinking so thin is explained by his quote "hearts grown cold to me." He is basically saying he is