I'M NOT sorry I am older, love -- are you? Over all youth's fuss and flurry, All its everlasting hurry, All its solemn self-importance and to-do. Perhaps we missed the highest reaches of high art; Love we missed not, and the laughter, Seeing both before and after -- Life was such a serious business at the start! We've lost nothing worth the keeping -- do you think? You are just as slim and elfish, And I've grown a world less selfish; We look back on life together -- and we wink. Over all those old misgivings of the heart, Growing pains of love and lover; Life's fun begins, its fevers over -- Life was such a serious business at the start! Garners full, life's grain and chaff we have sifted; Youth went by in idle tasting, Now we drink the cup, unhasting, Spill not a drop, brimful and high uplifted; And we watch now, calm and fearless, the years depart, Knowing nothing can now sever Two that life made one forever -- Life was @3such@1 a serious business at the start! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SECRECY PROTESTED by THOMAS CAREW UNWELCOME by MARY ELIZABETH COLERIDGE THE WARDEN OF THE CINQUE PORTS (THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON) by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW A SONG FOR THE NEW YEAR by FRANK GELETT BURGESS |