A Selection from the Lyrical Poems of Robert Herrick

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.