I cannot send you what you've sent to me;
And so I wish you'll never thank me more
For those poor gifts I have sent from year to year.
I send another, and hope that you can use it
To buy yourself those comforts which you need
This Christmas-time.
How strange it is to wake
And find that half a century has gone by,
With all our endless youth.
They talk to me
Of my discoveries, prate of undying fame
Too late to help me. Anything I achieved
Was done through work and patience; and the men
Who sought quick roads to glory for themselves
Were capable of neither. So I won
Their hatred, and it often hampered me,
Because it vexed my mind.
This world of ours
Would give me all, now I have ceased to want it;
For I sit here, alone, a sad old man,
Sipping his orange-water, nodding to sleep,
Not caring any more for aught they say,
Not caring any more for praise or blame;
But dreaming-things we dreamed of, long ago,
In childhood.
You and I had laughed away
That boy and girl affair. We were too poor
For anything but laughter.
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