With Age Wisdom
At twenty, stooping round about,
I thought the world a miserable place,
Truth a trick, faith in doubt,
Little beauty, less grace.
Now at sixty what I see,
Although the world is worse by far,
Stops my heart in ecstasy.
God, the wonders that there are!
Archibald MacLeish
MacLeish was born in Glencoe, Illinois. He attended the Hotchkiss School from 1907 to 1911, before moving on to Yale University, where he majored in English and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and selected for the Skull and Bones society. He then enrolled in the Harvard Law School.[1] In 1916, he married Ada Hitchcock.
His studies were interrupted by World War I, in which he served first as an ambulance driver and later as a captain of artillery. He graduated from the law school in 1919. He taught law for a semester for the government department at Harvard, then worked briefly as an editor for The New Republic. He next spent three years practicing law.
In 1923 MacLeish left his law firm and moved with his wife to Paris, where they joined the community of literary expatriates that included such members as Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway. He returned to America in 1928.
From 1930 to 1938 he worked as a writer and editor for Fortune Magazine, during which he also became increasingly politically active, especially with anti-fascist causes. He was a great admirer of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who appointed him Librarian of Congress in 1939. According to MacLeish, Roosevelt invited him to lunch and "Mr. Roosevelt decided that I wanted to be librarian of Congress." MacLeish held this job for five years. Though his appointment was officially opposed by the American Library Association because of his lack of professional training as a librarian, he is remembered by many as an effective leader who helped modernize the Library.
During World War II MacLeish also served as director of the War Department's Office of Facts and Figures and as the assistant director of the Office of War Information. These jobs were heavily involved with propaganda, which was well-suited to MacLeish's talents; he had written quite a bit of politically motivated work in the previous decade.
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1. When he is young, why does he think that the world is so bad?
2. Why does he change his mind as he gets older?
3. The name of the poem is "With Age Wisdom" -- what do you
think "widsdom" is? How is "wisdom" different than "knowledge"?
Would you rather have "wisdom" or "knowledge"?
3. What are some of the "wonders" that you can think of? Explain
why they are wonders.
Write a four line poem about your wonder.