Ballade Against My Contemporaries

The torrent of years has touched my shoulder
Lightly as rain. To coin a phrase,
You’re old as you feel and I feel no older
Than when I giggled at matinees
With schoolgirl cronies in plaid berets.
Youth’s durable steel requires no whetting.
It’s curious, though, in a number of ways
How elderly all my friends are getting.

I see them wither, I watch them molder,
Sag, grow crotchety, burst their stays,
As they savor smoke from a filtered holder
Or deal out Patience on dinner trays.
Golden Sibyl — how fast she grays!
Jeremy’s bald and David’s letting
His wit diminish to wan cliches.
How elderly all my friends are getting!

Admitted, the seasons are turning colder
While winter lingers or April strays,
That young men coarsen and girls are bolder
And there is little, of late, to praise.
I’d read some novels, I’d see some plays,
Except that the plots are so upsetting.
Perhaps it’s part of the world’s malaise
How elderly all my friends are getting.

I tell them that; but a kind of glaze,
A film, comes over their eyes like netting.
I can’t help noticing, nowadays,
How elderly all my friends are getting.