Walter Learned

To Critics

WHEN I was seventeen I heard
    From each censorious tongue, 
"I'd not do that if I were you;
    You see you're rather young."

Now that I number forty years,
    I'm quite as often told 
Of this or that I shouldn't do
    Because I'm quite too old.

O carping world! If there's an age
    Where youth and manhood keep 
An equal poise, alas! I must
    Have passed it in my sleep.