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 reach         The Great Divide of Thirty-five.         And looking back I must confess         I'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 sun         By 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 book         As absolute as Holy Writ;         We humbly read, and may not look         Ahead, 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 remains         When 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!