Classic Poem

When as a young and budding pote
I gazed upon the stuff I wrote,
I knew that stuff so weak and poor
Would never rank as Literature.

And yet, I thought, what I have sung
Is not so bad for one so young;
When years and ripeness shall be mine,
I may achieve the Mighty Line.

And in that withered yesteryear
I used to take unwonted cheer
In that De Morgan was a man
Of seventy when he began.

But now that years have bowed my bean
And I am more than seventeen,
I tell myself the bitter truth
And know I was a lying youth.

Now of my verse so thin and cold
I say, Not bad for one so old;
When I was twenty-four or -five
Then, then my verses were alive.

Now I, as creeping age defeats
Me, think of Chatterton or Keats,
And say, Look at the stuff he did,
When he was nothing but a kid!

But Time has taught me this, to wit:
That Age has naught to do with it,
That plenty be the years or scant,
Some can be poets, and some can't.