When I was One-and-Twenty

By A E Housman

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 is from Housman’s A Shropshire Lad, one of my favourite collections as my son David is a Shropshire Lad having been born in Gobowen, just over the border from my beloved Wales.