When I Was One-and-Twenty, or Poem XIII, is the informal name of an untitled poem by A. E. Housman, published in A Shropshire Lad in 1896. It is the thirteenth in a cycle of 63 poems. One of Housman's most familiar poems, it is untitled but often anthologised under a title taken from its first line. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations includes fourteen of its sixteen lines. Housman's New York Times obituary mentioned the poem: "Typical of his lyrics is the poem which has thrilled the world where English is spoken." Its subject matter, "then and now" temporal perspective, meter, and narrative structure within each verse parallel those of William Butler Yeats' Down by the Salley Gardens, itself a reworking of The Rambling Boys of Pleasure.
Text
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
‘Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free.’
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
‘The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
’Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue.’
And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.