XX: The fair face turneth like unto a smoky…

The fair face turneth like unto a smoky pot in old age:
The upright-statured becometh like a bent stick, in old age.

Like unto the candle in the morning, or the sun in winter,
One turneth pale, and wanteth warmth, in the time of old age.

If a person place his foot in one direction, he goeth in another;
The whole body becometh quite a stranger to us, in old age.

One's limbs are laid out, as if accounted among the dead,
Although he is still palpably beheld alive, in old age.

A defunct is much better off, for after death he liveth again;
But it is not so that one may again grow young, in old age.

If he take any thing, it disagreeth with him, like poison;
For one cannot eat, nor can one drink, in old age.

That is youth, in which one both heareth and seeth something;
But nothing can be heard, and nothing seen, in old age.

O Rahman! verily, old age is such utter helplessness,
That, were it Rustam himself, he deserveth pity, in old age.