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When I Was One-and-Twenty
- A. E. Housman (1859-1936)
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
"Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free."
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
"The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
"Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue."
And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.
This poem was first published in 1896. It can be found for example in:
Housman, A. E. A Shropshire Lad. Waterville,
ME: Colby College Library, 1946. (Where it is titled simply XIII.)
Williams, Oscar, ed. Immortal Poems of the English Language
New York: Pocket Books, 1952.
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