Centre for Romanian Studies

Ballad of the Ages
Wilhelm BUSCH, Theodore FONTANE & Eugen ROTH

When you’re a kid, your life’s a breeze
A time to do just as you please
But being small you’re much too keen
To grow into a sulky teen.

At eighteen, though, you blithely say
By twenty I’ll be tired and grey
But when you duly reach that stage
Why, thirty seems a ripe old age.

And in your fourties what you fear
Is tour approaching fiftieth year
But when it comes, lo and behold…
You really don’t feel all that old!

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