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Robert W Service - At Thirty-Five
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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!
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