"If youth only knew,
if age only could.”
O saddest of proverbs,
describing all the good

we squander early on
by being so crude
and later cannot get
for decrepitude

or weight of burdens.
What, no golden mean?
Perhaps just a sliver,
wedged in between.

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This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 32 Number 3, on page 27
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