On Growing Old

Well, since I have run out of ideas, what I am going to do is publish old college papers online for whosoever wants to take a look at them. Most of these tractates were written from an anthology of poems, but not all of them. All of these papers got no lower than a C grade, and only one got a C—the rest were A's or B's, if anyone care.

Basically, I'm going to publish these papers so that anyone can use them if he so want. I am giving you carte blanche to use them however you may. I believe that they may be of use to many people who are in an intensive writing program that involves writing papers on poems. Well, without further adieu, here it is on the poem, "On Growing Old", written by John Masefield (1878-1967). My paper will be subjacent to Masefield's poem:

ON GROWING OLD

Be with me, Beauty, for the fire is dying;
My dog and I are old, too old for roving.
Man, whose young passion sets the spindrift flying,
Is soon too lame to march, too cold for loving.
I take the book and gather to the fire,
Turning old yellow leaves; minute by minute
The clock ticks to my heart. A withered wire,
Moves a thin ghost of music in the spinet.
I cannot sail your seas, I cannot wander
Your cornland, nor your hill-land, nor your valleys
Ever again, nor share the battle yonder
Where the young knight the broken squadron rallies.
Only stay quiet while my mind remembers
The beauty of fire from the beauty of embers.

Beauty, have pity! for the strong have power,
The rich their wealth, the beautiful their grace,
Summer of man its sunlight and its flower.
Spring-time of man, all April in a face.
Only, as in the jostling in the Strand,
Where the mob thrusts, or loiters, or is loud,
The beggar with the saucer in his hand
Asks only a penny from the passing crowd,
So, from this glittering world with all its fashion,
Its fire, and play of men, its stir, its march,
Let me have wisdom, Beauty, wisdom and passion,
Bread to the soul, rain when the summers parch.
Give me but these, and though the darkness close
Even the night will blossom as the rose.

ON GROWING OLD

It can be said that each poem may have its own psychological interpretation when dealing with its narrator whether it be from Maslow's, Freud's, or Erikson's perspective. In John Masefield's poem, "On Growing Old," this precept rings especially true. Masefield, throughout his poem, clearly allows the reader to see his narrator's ascendance throughout the tiers of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

A perfect example of one of Maslow's needs can be limned by the reader when Masefield's narrator says, "Be with me, Beauty, for the fire is dying/ My dog and I are old, too old for roving" (1-2). These first two lines clearly point to Maslow's fourth tier, which is his need for esteem. Maslow believes that each individual wants to feel good about himself and, in these two lines, the narrator is asking that his "Beauty" stay with him. He clearly is observant to the fact that he is aging and that, with his age, he is losing his Beauty. Like any person, he is trying to beseech his good looks into staying with him even as he ages. This is a very common human psychological attribute that Maslow believes is innate in all individuals.

Masefield's narrator continues throughout his poem to show how he bounces from one tier to the next in his wizened years. For example, when the narrator says, "I take the book and gather to the fire/ Turning old yellow leaves; minute by minute," he is clearly expressing Maslow's fifth tier need for knowledge (5-6). This is limned by the fact that the narrator is riffing through pages of a book. This act clearly represents the narrator's thirst for knowledge in his old age. The fact that these pages are yellow shows that the book is old and that it may possibly be some sort of encyclopedia or reference book. One might picture an erudite man who is flicking through scholarly journals and lucubrating about concepts of great importance by candlelight if he were to envisage this.

These two lines could also portray Maslow's second tier—the need for safety. In the first line, the narrator expresses, "I take the book and gather to the fire," which could limn to its reader that the narrator is most comfortable with a book in his hands near a fire (5). In line six, the turning of the yellow leaves "minute by minute" could represent that the narrator likes to spend a substantial amount of time in this place of comfort.

Masefield's narrator can be portrayed as having an aesthetic quality when he says, "The clock ticks to my heart; a withered wire/ Moves a thin ghost of music in the spinet" (7-8). Here, Maslow's sixth tier can be limned in line seven when a spinet is mentioned. A spinet is a type of piano, which is a musical instrument and the love of music can portray an aesthetic quality in a person. Since it appears that the narrator has a spinet in his home, he can possibly be described as cultural or aesthetic.

Maslow's sixth tier need for aesthetics can also be limned in this poem when the narrator says to his reader:

I cannot sail your seas, I cannot wander
Your cornland nor your hill-land nor your valleys
Ever again, nor share the battle yonder
Where the young knight the broken squadron rallies;
Only stay quiet, while my mind remembers
The beauty of fire from the beauty of embers (9-14).

Here the narrator is expressing metaphorically that he is very old. The fact that he is using metaphors is an aesthetic quality. He says, "I cannot sail your seas, I cannot wander/ Your cornland nor you hill-land nor your valleys," which is his way of saying that his age has taken away his thirst for emprises (9-10). This lack of wanting to embark on emprises can also be limned when the narrator continues to say, "Ever again, nor share the battle yonder/ Where the young knight the broken squadron rallies" (11-12). Finally the narrator says, "Only stay quiet, while my mind remembers/ The beauty of fire from the beauty of embers" (13-14). This metaphor explains how, in the beginning, his life was tantamount to that of a raging fire, but now he is reduced to the beauty that embers imbue. An "ember" is what is seen when a fire dies out, which signifies the end of his life. All of these tropes ascribe an aesthetic quality to the narrator, which is significant to Maslow's sixth tier of needs.

In the final stanza, the reader can picture a transcendence of the narrator when he avers, "Beauty, have pity, for the strong have power/ The rich their wealth, the beautiful their grace" (15-16). It is here wherein the reader can ascribe Maslow's final tier of self-transcendence to the narrator because he has borne witness to other people's potential. The narrator has finally come to realize that this is how life works. There are the strong who have their power, there are the rich who have their wealth, and there are the beautiful people who have their grace.

Also, in the final stanza, the reader can notice the narrator's self-actualization, which is Maslow's seventh tier of needs. This can be portrayed to the reader when the narrator says:

Let me have wisdom, Beauty, wisdom and passion,
Bread to the soul, rain where the summers parch.
Give me but these, and though the darkness close
Even the night will blossom as the rose (25-28).

When the narrator expresses, "Let me have wisdom...wisdom and passion," he has actualized his potential in life (25). The narrator also knows that his life is ending when he states, "Give me but these, and though the darkness close," but it is here wherein he is asking to receive wisdom and passion for the remainder of his life (27). It is also in these last two lines that he explains to the reader that his life can still have meaning when he says, "Even the night will blossom as the rose" (28). Here the "rose" in line twenty-eight signifies the continuation of life whereas "night" signifies the ending of life.

In the end, one can conclude that, in every piece of poetry, some psychological argument can be made. Although whether that argument be the correct one is entirely subjective, a reader can infer whatever he may want because the true meaning of anything is always found somewhere in the psyche of its own reader.