At Thirty-five
Robert William Service
Three score and ten, the psalmist saith,
And half my course is well-nigh run;
I’ve had my flout at dusty death,
I’ve had my whack of feast and fun.
I’ve mocked at those who prate and preach;
I’ve laughed with any man alive;
But now with sobered heart I reach
The Great Divide of Thirty-five.
And looking back I must confess
I’ve little cause to feel elate.
I’ve played the mummer more or less;
I fumbled fortune, flouted fate.
I’ve vastly dreamed and little done;
I’ve idly watched my brothers strive:
Oh, I have loitered in the sun
By primrose paths to Thirty-five!
And those who matched me in the race,
Well, some are out and trampled down;
The others jog with sober pace;
Yet one wins delicate renown.
O midnight feast and famished dawn!
O gay, hard life, with hope alive!
O golden youth, forever gone,
How sweet you seem at Thirty-five!
Each of our lives is just a book
As absolute as Holy Writ;
We humbly read, and may not look
Ahead, nor change one word of it.
And here are joys and here are pains;
And here we fail and here we thrive;
O wondrous volume! what remains
When we reach chapter Thirty-five?
The very best, I dare to hope,
Ere Fate writes Finis to the tome;
A wiser head, a wider scope,
And for the gipsy heart, a home;
A songful home, with loved ones near,
With joy, with sunshine all alive:
Watch me grow younger every year—
Old Age! thy name is Thirty-five!
