I often wish that I were old, had done /
the work within me to which I owe my days, /
the hundred stories and the twenty plays, /
and what I have to add to thought, and one /
good deed, at least, before the time is gone; /
to know as a whole my art's bypaths and ways, /
and what is latent in the present phase /
(which I can hardly guess), this would be fun! /
what joy to know that I have said enough /
before I am by death or vice cut off!--- /
for I am dubious about my mode /
of life---unnerved by augmenting fears--- /
and where I stand today upon the road, /
see little pleasure in the coming years. /

--- Paul Goodman (1935)