I'm not sorry I am older, love—are you?
Over all youth's fuss and flurry,
All its everlasting hurry,
All its solemn self-importance and to-do.
Perhaps we missed the highest reaches of high art;
Love we missed not, and the laughter,
Seeing both before and after—
Life was such a serious business at the start!

We've lost nothing worth the keeping—do you think?
You are just as slim and elfish,
And I've grown a world less selfish;
We look back on life together—and we wink.
Over all those old misgivings of the heart,
Growing pains of love and lover;
Life's fun begins, its fevers over—
Life was such a serious business at the start!

Garners full, life's grain and chaff we have sifted;
Youth went by in idle tasting,
Now we drink the cup, unhasting,
Spill not a drop, brimful and high uplifted;
And we watch now, calm and fearless, the years depart,
Knowing nothing can now sever
Two that life made one forever—
Life was such a serious business at the start!