Ami GreenNot “a youth with hoary head and haggard eye”,But an old man with a smooth skinAnd black hair! I had the face of a boy as long as I lived,And for years a soul that was stiff and bent,In a world which saw me just as a jest,To be hailed familiarly when it chose,And loaded up as a man when it chose,Being neither man nor boy.In truth it was soul as well as bodyWhich never matured, and I say to youThat the much-sought prize of eternal youthIs just arrested growth.
Not “a youth with hoary head and haggard eye”,But an old man with a smooth skinAnd black hair! I had the face of a boy as long as I lived,And for years a soul that was stiff and bent,In a world which saw me just as a jest,To be hailed familiarly when it chose,And loaded up as a man when it chose,Being neither man nor boy.In truth it was soul as well as bodyWhich never matured, and I say to youThat the much-sought prize of eternal youthIs just arrested growth.