Literature

The nursery rhymes of infancy
sprout fairy tales in childhood.
Then melodramas of puberty,
like comedy misunderstood,
can sideshoot farce or tragedy.

Short stories bud in adolescence
and flower in novel maturity.
Experience turns reminiscence
as falling petals of poetry
till winter frosts presage senescence,

shrinking epics to favourite verses,
shrivelled epitaphs and hearses.