Old Age by Edmund Waller

 Walking up the stairs of my two floor apartment in Jiangyin, China, I feel old.  Here’s a poem about old age that comforts me.  Especially the last line.

Old Age by Edmund Waller 

The seas are quiet when the winds give o'er; 
So calm are we when passions are no more. 
For then we know how vain it was to boast
Of fleeting things, so certain to be lost. 
Clouds of affection from our younger eyes
Conceal that emptiness which age descries. 

The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd, 
Lets in new light through chinks that Time hath made: 
Stronger by weakness, wiser men become 
As they draw near to their eternal home.
Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view 
That stand upon the threshold of the new.