Had Youth Been Willing to Listen

If youth had been willing to listen
To all that its grandfathers told,
If the gray-bearded sage by the weight of his age
Had been able attention to hold,
We'd be reading by candles and heating with wood,
And where we were then we'd have certainly stood.

If youth had been willing to listen
To the warnings and hints of the wise,
Had it taken as true all the best which they knew,
And believed that no higher we'd rise,
The windows of sick rooms would still be kept shut
And we'd still use a cobweb to bandage a cut.

If youth had been willing to listen,
Had it clung to the best of the past,
With oxen right now we'd be struggling to plough
And thinking a horse travels fast.
We'd have stood where we were beyond question or doubt
If some pestilent germ hadn't wiped us all out.

So, although I am gray at the temples,
And settled and fixed in my ways,
I wouldn't hold youth to the limits of truth
That I learned in my brief yesterdays.
And I say to myself as they come and they go:
"Those kids may find something this age doesn't know."