When I Was Twenty

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Title:     When I Was Twenty
Author: Bliss Carman [More Titles by Carman]

_It was June, and I was twenty.
All my wisdom, poor but plenty,
Never learned_ Festina lente.
_Youth is gone, but whither went he?_

Madeline came down the orchard
With a mischief in her eye,
Half demure and half inviting,
Melting, wayward, wistful, shy.

Four bright eyes that found life lovely,
And forgot to wonder why;
Four warm lips at one love-lesson,
Learned by heart so easily.

We gained something of that knowledge
No man ever yet put by,
But his after days of sorrow
Left him nothing but to die.

Madeline went up the orchard,
Down the hurrying world went I;
Now I know love has no morrow,
Happiness no by-and-by.

_Youth is gone, but whither went he?
All my wisdom, poor but plenty,
Never learned_ Festina lente.
_It was June, and I was twenty._

[The end]
Bliss Carman's poem: When I Was Twenty

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