Youth is a drunken noisy hour,
With every folly fraught;
But man, by age's chast'ning power,
Is sober'd into thought.
Then we resolve our faults to shun,
And shape our course anew;
But ere the wise reform's begun
Life closes on our view.
The travellers thus who wildly roam,
Or heedlessly delay,
Are left, when they should reach their home,
Benighted on the way.
_Hebat Allah Ibn Altalmith_.
[42] Ibn Altalmith died in the 560th year of the Hegira, at the advanced
age of one hundred.