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THE OLD MEN
51
The Lamp of our Youth will be utterly out: but we shall subsist on the smell of it,
And whatever we do, we shall fold our hands and suck our gums and think well of it.
Yes, we shall be perfectly pleased with our work, and that is the perfectest Hell of it!
This is our lot if we live so long and listen to those who love us—
That we are shunned by the people about and shamed by the Powers above us.
Wherefore be free of your harness betimes; but being free be assured,
That he who hath not endured to the death, from his birth he hath never endured!
