-on a person's 20th birthday

When I turned twenty I couldn't wait,
so sure was I to change the world.
Exactly right were all my thoughts
I couldn't ever stop to state.

So I turned fourty while I built and built
on top of my precisely stated schemes.
My loved ones warned me for collapse
but I would never stop, in it to the hilt.

When I turned sixty, felt a faint crack,
not in my infallible buildings
but in my overstressed back.

Now that I am eighty years of age
I know the way to perfection:
the missing line in your design
opens your cage for the future page.