Rhymes of a Rolling Stone/At Thirty-Five
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At Thirty-Five
Three score and ten, the psalmist saith,And half my course is well-nigh run;I’ve had my flout at dusty death,I’ve had my whack of feast and fun.I’ve mocked at those who prate and preach;I’ve laughed with any man alive;But now with sobered heart I reachThe Great Divide of Thirty-five.
And looking back I must confessI’ve little cause to feel elate.I’ve played the mummer more or less;I fumbled fortune, flouted fate.I’ve vastly dreamed and little done;I’ve idly watched my brothers strive:Oh, I have loitered in the sunBy primrose paths to Thirty-five!
And those who matched me in the race,Well, some are out and trampled down;The others jog with sober pace;Yet one wins delicate renown.O midnight feast and famished dawn!O gay, hard life, with hope alive!O golden youth, forever gone,How sweet you seem at Thirty-five!
Each of our lives is just a bookAs absolute as Holy Writ;We humbly read, and may not lookAhead, nor change one word of it.And here are joys and here are pains;And here we fail and here we thrive;O wondrous volume! what remainsWhen we reach chapter Thirty-five?
The very best, I dare to hope,Ere Fate writes Finis to the tome;A wiser head, a wider scope,And for the gipsy heart, a home;A songful home, with loved ones near,With joy, with sunshine all alive:Watch me grow younger every year —Old Age! thy name is Thirty-five!