Classic Poem

I

Could you and I our Lives renew,
 And be both young agen,
Retaining what we ever knew
 Of Manners, Times and Men,

II

We could not frame so loose to live,
 But must be useful then,
E'er we could possibly arrive
 To the same Age agen;

III

But Youth's devour'd in Vanities
 Before we are aware,
And so grown old before grown wise,
 We good for nothing are:

IV

Or, if by that time knowing grown,
 By reading Books and Men,
For others Service, or our own,
 'Tis with the latest then.

V

Happy's that man, in this estate,
 Whose Conscience tells him still,
That though for good he comes too late,
 He ne'er did any ill.