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.

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