Ami Green

Not “a youth with hoary head and haggard eye”, But an old man with a smooth skin And 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 body Which never matured, and I say to you That the much-sought prize of eternal youth Is just arrested growth.