Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

“ At fifty a man is wrinkled, and may be bald or gray;
I call men old at fifty, in spite of all they say.
At last comes another August with mist and rain and shine;
Its mornings are slowly counted and creep to twenty-nine,
And when on the western summits the fading light appears,
It touches with rosy fingers the last of my fifty years.
There have been both men and women whose hearts were firm and bold,
But there never was one of fifty that loved to say "I'm old;"
So any elderly person that strives to shirk his years,
Make him stand up at a table and try him by his peers. ”

“ He said, "Well now, old fellow, I'm thinking that you and I,
If we act like other people, shall be older by and by;
What though the bright blue ocean is smooth as a pond can be,
There is always a line of breakers to fringe the broadest sea. ”

“ For up to the age of thirty we spend our years like change;
But creeping up towards the forties, as fast as the old years fill,
And Time steps in for payment, we seem to change a bill."
"I know it," I said, "old fellow; you speak the solemn truth;
A man can't live to a hundred and likewise keep his youth;
But what if the ten years coming shall silver-streak my hair,
You know I shall then be forty; of course I shall not care.
"At forty a man grows heavy and tired of fun and noise ”