NOT SOUR GRAPES
Reading edition
I'm not sorry I am older, love—are you? Over all youth's fuss and flurry, All its everlasting hurry, All its solemn self-importance and to-do. Perhaps we missed the highest reaches of high art; Love we missed not, and the laughter, Seeing both before and after— Life was such a serious business at the start!
We've lost nothing worth the keeping—do you think? You are just as slim and elfish, And I've grown a world less selfish; We look back on life together—and we wink. Over all those old misgivings of the heart, Growing pains of love and lover; Life's fun begins, its fevers over— Life was such a serious business at the start!
Garners full, life's grain and chaff we have sifted; Youth went by in idle tasting, Now we drink the cup, unhasting, Spill not a drop, brimful and high uplifted; And we watch now, calm and fearless, the years depart, Knowing nothing can now sever Two that life made one forever— Life was such a serious business at the start!