Classic and Contemporary Poetry
SONG, by JAMES ROBINSON PLANCHE First Line: Three score and ten by common calculation Last Line: You've reached four-score, but haven't lived a day! Subject(s): Life; Singing & Singers; Time | ||||||||
THREE score and ten by common calculation The years of man amount to; but we'll say He turns four-score, yet, in my estimation, In all those years he has not lived a day. Out of the eighty you must first remember The hours of night you pass asleep in bed; And, counting from December to December, Just half your life you'll find you have been dead. To forty years at once by this reduction We come; and sure, the first five from your birth, While cutting teeth and living upon suction, You're not alive to what this life is worth. From thirty-five next take for education Fifteen at least at college and at school; When, notwithstanding all your application, The chances are you may turn out a fool. Still twenty we have left us to dispose of, But during them your fortune you've to make; And granting, with the luck of some one knows of, 'Tis made in ten -- that's ten from life to take. Out of the ten yet left you must allow for The time for shaving, tooth and other aches, Say four -- and that leaves, six, too short, I vow, for Regretting past and making fresh mistakes. Meanwhile each hour dispels some fond illusion; Until at length, sans eyes, sans teeth, you may Have scarcely sense to come to this conclusion -- You've reached four-score, but haven't lived a day! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ELEVEN EYES: FINAL SECTION by LYN HEJINIAN THE FATALIST: COME OCTOBER by LYN HEJINIAN THE FATALIST: HOME by LYN HEJINIAN THE FATALIST: TIME IS FILLED by LYN HEJINIAN SLOWLY: I FREQUENTLY SLOWLY WISH by LYN HEJINIAN ALL THE DIFFICULT HOURS AND MINUTES by JANE HIRSHFIELD A DAY IS VAST by JANE HIRSHFIELD FROM THIS HEIGHT by TONY HOAGLAND |
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