The Poetry Corner

Not Sour Grapes

By Richard Le Gallienne

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!