A Man Can Complain Can't He? by Ogden Nash

A Man Can Complain Can't He?

(A Lament for Those Who Think Old)

by Ogden Nash

Pallid and moonlike in the smog,

Now feeble Phoebus ‘gins arise;

The upper floors of Empire State

Have vanished into sooty skies.

Half missing, like the shrouded tower,

Lacklustre, like the paten solar,

I draw reluctant waking breath;

Another day, another dolor.

That breath I draw was first exhaled

By diesel and incinerator;

I should have wakened not at all,

Or, were it feasible, even later.

Walls of the world close in on me,

Threats equatorial and polar;

Twixt pit and pendulum I lie;

Another day, another dolor.

Here’s news about the current strike,

The latest, greatest test of fission,

A fatal mugging in the park,

An obit of the Geneva mission.

One envelope yields a baffling form

Submitted by the tax comptroller;

A jury summons completes my mail;

Another day, another dolor.

Once eager for, I’ve come to dread,

The nimble fingers of my barber;

He’s training strands across my scalp

Like skimpy vines across an arbor.

The conversation at the club

Is all intestinal or molar;

What dogs the Class of ‘24?

Another day, another dolor.

Between the dotard and the brat

My disaffection veers and varies;

Sometimes I’m sick of clamoring youth,

Sometimes of my contemporaries.

I’m old too soon, yet young too long;

Could Swift himself have planned it droller?

Timor vitae conturbat me;

Another day, another dolor.