We must make haste, lose no time at all

Impose upon ourselves no repose or fast.

A few short days from now you’ll still be youthfast,

I no longer will. I shall be thirty-all.

I heaved, I hauled and yet I forgot the slope.

I must hold myself back instead of pressing on;

The heart unrolls swiftly a ribbon of lost hope,

You with nineteen total, I near thirty-one.

How the curséd ribbon can almost me slay!

Let it wait so yours from out your heart unwad,

And then side by side, we shall feel that way,

Diminish into weakness the very fatal squad.

Jean Cocteau