MY WIFE, TO A FRIEND WHO WOULD GUESS HER AGE.
Oh, no, my friend, you blunder there,
Your guess is far from true;
She has grown dearer many a year,
But not yet “sixty-two.”
Time's careless fingers o'er her head
Have dropped the crystal dew,—
The pearls flow down in silver gloss;
But she 's not “sixty-two.”
You think she 'd seen so much of life,
Alike the old and new,
She must be quite advanced, perhaps,—
Well, far from “sixty-two.”
You might have guessed more wisely, friend,
Had you a better clew;
You judge her by her wisdom?—Well,
She is not “sixty-two.”
Her cheerful face, her bonny curls,
Her heart so warm and true,—
Tell tales of years of joy and love;
But she 's not “sixty-two.”
For years, home's sunny bowers more bright
With clustering offshoots grew,
And other bowers have reared their young;
But she 's not “sixty-two.”
Diminish it by four, I pray;
Her sky, still bright and blue,
Bends, loving, round her youthful head;
Yet she 's not “sixty-two.”
The silvery brown that crowns her brow
Suggests “Serenely wait,
And sometime, on some pleasant morn,
She'll wake, just fifty-eight.”
February, 1871.
