I’m like a backward berry
Unripened on the vine,
For all my friends are fifty
And I’m only forty-nine.My friends are steeped in wisdom,
Like senators they go,
In the light of fifty candles,
And one on which to grow.How can I cap their sallies,
Or top their taste in wine?
Matched with the worldly fifties,
What chance has forty-nine?Behold my old companions,
My playmates and my peers,
Remote on their Olympus
Of half a hundred years!These grave and reverend seniors,
They call me Little Man,
They pat my head jocosely
And pinch my cheek of tan.Why must I scuff my loafers
And grin a schoolboy grin?
Is not my waist as ample?
Is not my hair as thin?When threatened with a rumba,
Do I not seek the bar?
And am I not the father
Of a freshman at Bryn Mawr?O, wad some pawky power
Gie me a gowden giftie,
I’d like to stop at forty-nine,
But pontificate like fifty.Ogden Nash: The Calendar-Watchers, or
What’s So Wonderful About Being a Patriarch?
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