69. ON HIMSELF

A wearied pilgrim I have wander'd here,

Twice five-and-twenty, bate me but one year;

Long I have lasted in this world; 'tis true

But yet those years that I have lived, but few.

Who by his gray hairs doth his lustres tell,

Lives not those years, but he that lives them well:

One man has reach'd his sixty years, but he

Of all those three-score has not lived half three:

He lives who lives to virtue; men who cast

Their ends for pleasure, do not live, but last.

A Selection from the Lyrical Poems of Robert Herrick · 第 79 / 269 题