Sexagenarius Loquitur

From our youth to our age
We have passed each stage
In old immemorial order,
From primitive days
Through flowery ways
With love like a hedge as their border.
Ah, youth was a kingdom of joy,
And we were the king and the queen,
When I was a year
Short of thirty, my dear,
And you were just nearing nineteen.

But dark follows light
And day follows night
As the old planet circles the sun;
And nature still traces
Her score on our faces
And tallies the years as they run.
Have they chilled the old warmth in your heart?
I swear that they have not in mine,
Though I am a year
Short of sixty, my dear,
And you are - well, say thirty-nine.


Sir Arthur Conan Doyle