When I Was One-and-Twenty Lyrics

         XIII
        
When I was one-and-twenty
         I heard a wise man say,
"Give crowns and pounds and guineas
         But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
         But keep your fancy free."
But I was one-and-twenty,
         No use to talk to me.

        
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.

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About

Genius Annotation

Housman on keeping a stiff upper lip in matters of the heart.

The poem presents a kind of proverbial wisdom without narrating what has actually happened to the speaker. Housman leaves it to us to imagine the sad story, inducing us to agree with the wise man. The tone is more one of experiential regret than philosophical speculation on the possibility of freedom in love.

If we take “guineas” and “rubies” as half-rhymes with “twenty” (marked with an apostrophe as A') we get a loosely ABAB rhyme scheme, with masculine and feminine rhymes alternating.

Q&A

Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning

  1. 1.
    1887
  2. 10.
    March
  3. 13.
    When I Was One-and-Twenty
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