As that I am a boy. Cleanthes scorned me;
And, when I drove a thrust, home as I could,
To reach his traitor heart, he put it by,
And cried, as in derision,—Spare the stripling.
Oh that insulting word! I would have swopped
Youth for old age, and all my life behind,
To have been then a momentary man.
Cleom. Alas! thy manhood, like a forward spring,
Before it comes to bear the promised fruit,
Is blighted in the bud. Never, my boy,