When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
“Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away.”
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
“The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
‘Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue.”
And I am two-and-twenty
And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.
A. E. Housman (Alfred Edward Housman)