Fifty and Fifteen

Fifty and Fifteen

With gradual gleam the day was dawning,
    Some lingering stars were seen,
  When swung the garden-gate behind us,–
    He fifty, I fifteen.

  The high-topped chaise and old gray pony
    Stood waiting in the lane:
  Idly my father swayed the whip-lash,
    Lightly he held the rein.

  The stars went softly back to heaven,
    The night-fogs rolled away,
  And rims of gold and crowns of crimson
    Along the hill-tops lay.

  That morn, the fields, they surely never
    So fair an aspect wore;
  And never from the purple clover
    Such perfume rose before.

  O'er hills and low romantic valleys
    And flowery by-roads through,
  I sang my simplest songs, familiar,
    That he might sing them too.

  Our souls lay open to all pleasure,–
    No shadow came between;
  Two children, busy with their leisure,–
    He fifty, I fifteen.

       * * * * *

  As on my couch in languor, lonely,
    I weave beguiling rhyme,
  Comes back with strangely sweet remembrance
    That far-removed time.

  The slow-paced years have brought sad changes,
    That morn and this between;
  And now, on earth, my years are fifty,
    And his, in heaven, fifteen.