Till the tired heart has ceased to palpitate.
Cato learned Greek at eighty. Sophocles
Wrote his grand Œdipus, and Simonides
Bore off the prize of verse from his compeers
When each had numbered more than fourscore years.
…
Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last,
Completed Faust when eighty years were past.
These were exceptions, but they show
How far the gulf stream of our youth may flow