When a man is not a lover in his twenties, not strong in his thirties, not rich in his forties and not wise in his fifties he will never be so.
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39
I only woke this morning
To find the world is fair—
I’m going on for forty,
With scarcely one grey hair;
I’m going on for forty,
Where man’s strong life begins,
With scarce a sign of crows’ feet,
In spite of all my sins.
Then here’s the living Forties!
The Forties! The Forties!
Then here’s the living Forties!
We’re good for ten years more.
The teens were black and bitter,
A smothered boyhood’s grave—
A farm-drudge in the drought-time,
A weary workshop slave.
But twenty years have laid them,
And all the world is fair—
We’ll find time in the Forties,
To have some boyhood there.
Then here’s the wide, free Forties—
The Forties! The Forties!
Then here’s the wide, free Forties!
We’re good for ten years more!
The twenties they were noble,
The bravest years, I think;
’Twas man to man in trouble,
In working and in drink;
’Twas man to man in fighting,
For money or for praise.
And we’ll find in the Forties
Some more Bohemian days.
Then here’s the wiser Forties!
The Forties! The Forties!
Then here’s the wiser Forties!
We’re good for ten years more.
The thirties were the fate years;
I fought behind the scenes.
The thirties were more cruel
And blacker than the teens;
I held them not but bore them—
They were no years of mine;
But they are going from me,
For I am thirty-nine.
So here’s the stronger Forties!
The Forties! The Forties!
And here’s the good old Forties!
We’re good for ten years more.
poem by Henry Lawson
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And, well of course, Count Basie, and I think all of the black bands of the late thirties and early forties, bands with real players. They had an influence on everybody, not just drummers.
quote by Buddy Rich
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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It is in the thirties that we want friends. In the forties we know they won't save us any more than love did.
Indian actress Padmini
Padmini, an actress from Kerala,
A heart throbs of Tamils for decades,
Breathed her last at 75 in 2006.
She was my sex symbol in my twenties.
She was my sex symbol at her fifties.
Her twenties’ image still lures me,
Even in my sixties and has played longest
In my fantasy. A better homage
She deserved, which Tamils failed to give.
26.09.2006.
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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Nasty Mirror
I look in the mirror and who do I see…
A strange old man glowering at me.
His forehead has crashed and mustache faded;
It can’t be me. My mind must be jaded.
This nasty mirror depicts sad, faltering eyes.
Now I know it’s telling me balled-faced lies.
It portrays the mouth with a sliver of lips.
The facade of a countenance it shatters and rips.
Well maudlin mirror I’ll have you know
That ‘neath this wretched casement ready to go
There’s a sharp mind and a white hot heart
Recounting countless memories from the start.
As a young lad I was eager to learn.
Then as a teen first love made my heart burn.
In my late twenties I exchanged vows
And started a family with the usual roughs.
My thirties raced as the kids grew even faster.
School, sports and music they attempted to master.
As my forties proceeded they struck out on their own,
Leaving us two to renew our love alone.
Little feet appeared with the cherished grandparent’s role.
Though the cascading fifties started eliciting a toll.
Health became an issue as bad habits of youth were paid.
The sixties is when pain and suffering stayed.
Now I’m an old man as evidenced by the cruel mirror.
Yesterday I was young and now the end seems so much nearer.
But rather than lament the fact that I soon may be dead,
I’ll smile at the mirror and plan for the fun I know is ahead.
poem by Gregory Huyette
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There are lesbians, God knows... if you came up through lesbian circles in the forties and fifties in New York... who were not feminist and would not call themselves feminists.
quote by Audre Lorde
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Bigot
I hate most of all the damn bigots
The closed-minded fools
The idiots who have forgotten
How well they have it.
If there's something I've learned and should impart
It is - keep an open mind and heart
Because as soon as you close things down
Start ignoring other peoples reality
You become a fool.
I'm meeting them in their thirties and forties
And much more concerning, in their twenties
So pampered and conditioned and soft
That life seems like a boring, waking dream
A consumerist paradise
A subtle yet potent Hell.
I'm walking around knee deep
But not in my own mistakes
The mistakes and stupidity of others
Which bring my own concerns
Rushing up through the gullet
An unstoppable nausea.
This bigotry, this form of prejudice
This soul-rotting, irritating thing.
I often feel it's what holds me back
My own pre-occupation with this
Hate made manifest.
poem by Gary Diamond
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Some of my ancestors were religious dissenters who came to America over three hundred years ago. Others were abolitionists in New England in the eighteen forties and fifties.
quote by Pete Seeger
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I told her it was a bigger than life musical, that all the actors were going to be about the same age, late twenties into thirties. It would be a style; a kind of surreal high school.
quote by Randal Kleiser
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Knowledgeable One
They are not the brightest for to give them their due
And on his subject matter they did not have a clue
He seems a bit clever the older bloke said
To which his younger mate answered not right in the head.
Since he did seem a clever young person to me
With the older bloke's assumption I could only agree
And though I too not the brightest I was duly impressed
With one in his mid twenties who with knowledge is blessed.
The bloke in his thirties to the barmaid for another beer did call
With the knowledgeable one he did not seem impressed at all
And when the knowledgeable one had left the pub he turned to me to say
This bloke Socrates he was talking of who is he anyway?
His name is a name that I cannot recall
He cannot be famous he does not play football
I informed him the one of whom the clever one did speak
Is a long dead philosopher a legendary Greek.
He and his mate in his forties began to discuss Sunday's big game
Every player taking part they know them by name
Of football between them little they would not have known
Suppose like it is said of people to each their own.
poem by Francis Duggan
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I suppose I'm led to do so by the fact of what happened to my contemporaries - people whom I've admired, people who I thought were ten times better than me when I was in my twenties and early thirties. I may have been right.
quote by George Woodcock
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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looking Back An Overview Of A Life
Today, I turned forty three
So I look back or look ahead
Back to what I was or ahead to what I'll be
But not too far because then I'd be dead
I decided to look back then ttavel ahead
Exploring my most pivotal years
Remembering things people had said
Examining my deepest fears
Childhood, years of innocence and wonder
Everything to a child's eyes is new
Til one day, innocence is torn asunder
As surely as the sky will be blue
Teenage years, a sense of immortality
At such an age death is not even imagined
Doing everything with such youthful vitality
Not knowing the end is already predestined
Twenties and Thirties maturity is reached
And things just seem to fall into place
Your innocence, long since breached
Is remembered in the look on a child's face
In your Forties attaining middle age
Deciding that maturity looks good on you
Graying hair, against which you don't rage
You feel it's distinguished, how very true
poem by Harry J. Couchon Jr
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Nobody ever said that growing old would be easy. Just having to hold the newspaper out in your forties and then hair growing out of unusual parts of your body in your fifties. It's tough on the ego.
quote by Geoffrey Rush
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I knew that if I wrote a new book every six months or every year, if I continued to read great books, eventually I would write something worthy of publication. I understood I might be in my forties or my fifties or even my sixties, but I felt confident that it would happen.
quote by Augusten Burroughs
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Happiest Old
The happiest old
have nothing and don't mind.
The happiest young
are old before their time.
Few these.
The others are behind their years,
suffer thirteen-year-olds' fears
into their twenties,
and in their forties
have appetite
for sins of twenty.
But not the bite.
poem by Brian Taylor
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Christy Ring
I'll tell you about a great hurler he hurled his way into renown
And his fame spread distant from Cork City through many a village and town
He inspired the poets to write of him and the song writers his praises did sing
And he was the hurler of all Seasons the one and only Christy Ring.
He was born in the year nineteen twenty and he died in nineteen seventy nine
And he played from the thirties until the late sixties and as he aged he matured like good wine
He won eighteen Railway cup medals a record that will never be beat
Yet he was a down to earth fellow a man who was free of conceit.
Of him there has been many stories his imprint in hurling he made
As long as hurling is played he will be remembered for the many great games that he played
In Cork, Limerick, Thurles and Killarney and in Dublin in famed Croke Park
In his three marvellous decades of hurling the wizard from Cloyne left his mark.
When I was a boy in the fifties Christy Ring in his mid thirties then
Yet still one of Ireland's best hurlers he helped Cork and Glen Rovers to many a win
He revelled in fierce competition and even in his forties played against the best
And he always worried his opponents the hurler who always impressed.
The Cork and the Glen Rovers wizard his fame spread beyond Ireland's shore
his name will live as long as the game of hurling and that will be forever more
He inspired the poets to write of him and the song writers of him did sing
And he was the hurler of all Seasons the legendary Christy Ring.
poem by Francis Duggan
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He that is not handsome at 20, nor strong at 30, nor rich at 40, nor wise at 50, will never be handsome, strong, rich or wise.
quote by George Herbert
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Lover Lover Lover
I asked my father,
I said, father change my name.
The one Im using now its covered up
With fear and filth and cowardice and shame.
Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me,
Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me.
He said, I locked you in this body,
I meant it as a kind of trial.
You can use it for a weapon,
Or to make some woman smile.
Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me,
Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me.
Then let me start again, I cried,
Please let me start again,
I want a face thats fair this time,
I want a spirit that is calm.
Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me,
Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me.
I never never turned aside, he said,
I never walked away.
It was you who built the temple,
It was you who covered up my face.
Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me,
Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me.
And may the spirit of this song,
May it rise up pure and free.
May it be a shield for you,
A shield against the enemy.
Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me,
Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me.
Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me,
Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me.
song performed by by Leonard Cohen
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The best years are the forties; after fifty a man begins to deteriorate, but in the forties he is at the maximum of his villainy.
quote by H.L. Mencken
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Very Wise Woman
The very wise woman she said to her son
If you cannot love yourself you cannot love anyone
With what she said I for one cannot disagree
She does seem a very wise person to me
The truth in her words I have come to realize
For one in her early thirties she does seem so wise
She said to her son your love of self to love of others expand
Of how love works she is one who does understand
Wisdom does not have an age to it as we have been told
A marvellous insight from a young mother to her nine year old
And since self love is a sibling of compassion and ruth
Her words to her son in them have the beauty of truth
If you cannot love yourself you cannot love anyone
The very wise woman she said to her son.
poem by Francis Duggan
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