To Critics

When i was seventeen I heard   From each censorious tongue, “I ’d not do that if I were you;   You see you ’re rather young.” Now that I number forty years,   I ’m quite as often told Of this or that I should n’t do   Because I ’m quite too old. O carping world! If there ’s an age   Where youth and manhood keep An equal poise, alas! I must   Have passed it in my sleep.