I only woke this morning <br />To find the world is fair— <br />I’m going on for forty, <br />With scarcely one grey hair; <br />I’m going on for forty, <br />Where man’s strong life begins, <br />With scarce a sign of crows’ feet, <br />In spite of all my sins. <br /> <br />Then here’s the living Forties! <br />The Forties! The Forties! <br />Then here’s the living Forties! <br />We’re good for ten years more. <br /> <br />The teens were black and bitter, <br />A smothered boyhood’s grave— <br />A farm-drudge in the drought-time, <br />A weary workshop slave. <br />But twenty years have laid them, <br />And all the world is fair— <br />We’ll find time in the Forties, <br />To have some boyhood there. <br /> <br />Then here’s the wide, free Forties— <br />The Forties! The Forties! <br />Then here’s the wide, free Forties! <br />We’re good for ten years more! <br /> <br />The twenties they were noble, <br />The bravest years, I think; <br />’Twas man to man in trouble, <br />In working and in drink; <br />’Twas man to man in fighting, <br />For money or for praise. <br />And we’ll find in the Forties <br />Some more Bohemian days. <br /> <br />Then here’s the wiser Forties! <br />The Forties! The Forties! <br />Then here’s the wiser Forties! <br />We’re good for ten years more. <br /> <br />The thirties were the fate years; <br />I fought behind the scenes. <br />The thirties were more cruel <br />And blacker than the teens; <br />I held them not but bore them— <br />They were no years of mine; <br />But they are going from me, <br />For I am thirty-nine. <br /> <br />So here’s the stronger Forties! <br />The Forties! The Forties! <br />And here’s the good old Forties! <br />We’re good for ten years more.<br /><br />Henry Lawson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/39-4/
