By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Retirement – by which we mean not only ‘giving up work after a lifetime of service to enjoy a well-earned rest’ but also ‘retiring away somewhere from something, for relaxation or contemplation’ – has been a topic of poems for centuries. The Romantics loved to retire among nature; modern and contemporary poets talk about reaching the age of retirement and enjoying a ‘second childhood’.
Below, we introduce ten of the greatest retirement poems which consider various kinds of ‘retiring’.