( " Crabbed YOUTH AND AGE CANNOT LIVE TOGETHER . " )

No ground for putting on airs, old friend,
Counting years you have wiggled through,
There's many a pauper and villain and fool
Bird in the tree and fish in the pool
As old, or older than you.

Not dying proves little when all is said,
As the poets have seen and sung,
Those by whom all the world was led
Were often survived by the " better dead " —
" Whom the gods love die young. "

No ground for putting on airs, young friend,
Because you are young and new,
There's many a donkey beside its dam,
Cotton-tail rabbit and wooly lamb
As young and younger than you.

The Hope of the World is in Youth, you say,
Verdant her robe is seen;
But we may look back for a very long way,
Where each generation was young in its day,
And still see something green.

Our wounds are not to be helped by age,
And not to be healed by youth,
What the world needs to dry its tears
Is no poor pride about days and years
But Wisdom and Courage and Truth.