Happy Birthday to Me

I thought I'd share this poem by Kingsley Amis, which John Derbyshire posted a couple years back. Although the poem addresses newly-minted quinquagenarians--today I turn thirty-three, not fifty--"Ode to Me" speaks to anyone older than thirty.

Ode to Me

by Kingsley Amis

Fifty today, old lad?
Well, that's not doing so bad:
All those years without
Being really buggered about.
The next fifty won't be so good,
True, but for now—touch wood—
You can eat and booze and the rest of it,
Still get a lot of the best of it,
While the shags with fifty or so
Actual years to go
Will find most of them tougher,
The going a good bit rougher
Within the Soviet sphere—
Which means when the bastards are here,
Making it perfectly clear
That all that double-think
(Both systems on the blink,
East and West the same,
And war just the name of a game)
Is the ballocks it always was.
But will it be clear? Because
After a whole generation
Of phasing out education,
Throwing the past away,
Letting the language decay,
And expanding the general mind
Till it bursts, we might well find
That it wouldn't make much odds
To the poor semi-sentient sods
Shuffling round England then
That they've lost what made them men.
So bloody good luck to you, mate,
That you weren't born too late
For at least a chance of happiness,
Before unchangeable crappiness
Spreads over all the land.
Be glad you're fifty—and
That you got there while things were nice,
In a world worth looking at twice.
So here's wishing you many more years,
But not all that many. Cheers!