There's nothing worth the wear of winning, But laughter and the love of friends.

From Dedicatory Ode by Hillaire Belloc

Eheu Fugaces! Postume!*
(An old quotation out of mode);
My coat of dreams is stolen away
My youth is passing down the road.

The wealth of youth, we spent it well
And decently, as very few can.
And is it lost? I cannot tell:
And what is more, I doubt if you can.

The question's very much too wide,
And much too deep, and much too hollow,
And learned men on either side
Use arguments I cannot follow.

They say that in the unchanging place,
Where all we loved is always dear,
We meet our morning face to face
And find at last our twentieth year...

They say (and I am glad they say)
It is so ; and it may be so:
It may be just the other way,
I cannot tell. But this I know:

From quiet homes and first beginning,
Out to the undiscovered ends,
There's nothing worth the wear of winning,
But laughter and the love of friends.

* Alas! Postumus, the swift years