An Old Heart

How young I am!    Ah! heaven, this curse of youth          Doth mock me from my mirror with great eyes,     And pulsing veins repeat the unwelcome truth,          That I must live, though hope within me dies.     So young, and yet I have had all of life.          Why, men have lived to see a hundred years,     Who have not known the rapture, joy, and strife          Of my brief youth, its passion and its tears.     Oh! what are years?    A ripe three score and ten          Hold often less of life, in its best sense,     Than just a twelvemonth lived by other men,          Whose high-strung souls are ardent and intense.     But having seen all depths and scaled all heights,          Having a heart love thrilled, and sorrow wrung,     Knowing all pains, all pleasures, all delights,          Now I would die -but cannot, being young.     Nothing is left me, but supreme despair;          The bitter dregs that tell of wasted wine.     Come furrowed brow, dull eye, and frosted hair,          Companions fit for this old heart of mine.