Famous Poem

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) is regarded by many as one of the greatest poets/playwrights in history. This poem is an excerpt from his play "As You Like It." The poem compares the world to a stage and life to a play, and catalogs seven stages in a man's life: infant, schoolboy, lover, soldier, justice, aging man, and finally facing imminent death. The poem suggests that each stage in a man's life calls upon him to play another role.

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He gets tired of his childhood and hastens to grow up; then he becomes nostalgic about his childhood. To gain wealth, he would endanger his health; then to regain his lost health, he spends...

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Famous Poem

All The World's A Stage

William Shakespeare By more William Shakespeare

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

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Has this poem touched you? Share your story!
  • Kumari Weerasooriya by Kumari Weerasooriya
  • 5 years ago

I teach English Literature. Once I taught this excerpt from "As You Like It" to my students. After the lesson they did a creative presentation based on that. Shakespeare is one of the greatest poets and playwrights we always remember and respect enthusiastically.

  • Mohammad Ali Pirooz by Mohammad Ali Pirooz
  • 6 years ago

He gets tired of his childhood and hastens to grow up; then he becomes nostalgic about his childhood. To gain wealth, he would endanger his health; then to regain his lost health, he spends wealth. He lives as if he will never die; then he dies as if he has never lived. He thinks so much about his future that he loses every day. Life is neither past nor future but today.

  • Boon by Boon
  • 4 years ago

True bro. Life is neither past nor future but today. When you are trying to gain wealth, in the process you lose health. To regain health, you need to spend wealth.

  • Desiderata by Desiderata
  • 7 years ago

Life is like a stage. We all have our exits and entrances. We all have different stages in life, and in those stages we all have different roles to play.

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