en personae

If I could ever be made new then what
Would I become? For certainly my soul
Would change and lose what I had won. All that 
Would ever speak in grace of trying so
  For truth, would cry most fearsome for the wrong
  That I had done to youth. I am the one 
  That I was born, grown better through the song
  For in the practice truths are found that come
  From trial long. But change me to the straight
And true, the well used path of life... why, then
I'd die and cease to be, no more to grate
At life. So let me live and learn to pen
The ways all forgotten. And when my date
  Comes to end, let life grow from what`s rotten.