By way of not defining it as an absence
Of disease or disability, let us refer
To what allows living in fullest measure.
A cardinal feature is unobtrusiveness—
No counting of stairs or hesitation
Over running for a bus. Its disappearance,
On the other hand, is sensed at once
As pain in the back or a scratchy throat
And those persistent discomforts, threatening
The knee of the inveterate walker,
The music lover's ear, the surgeon's steady hand.
More than mortality, what obtrudes is decline.

But let a man die in the fullness of his promise
And we mourn what a lost decade might achieve
Not thinking of the agonies he was spared
Or extending posthumous congratulation
On the quality his life enjoyed. Cannot disease
Harmonize living with moral overtones,
Dignity, and fortitude? And may not pain invigorate
Wellsprings of unsuspected talent, enabling
The objective expression of feeling we call art?
Perfect health, after all, might be at fault
For keeping Gray's mute Milton at the plough!