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