THE OLD POET AND HIS WIFE.
Around her fell the evening glow,Her old hands lying on her knee,As if the years had bent her low."When I was young and fair," sighed she,"Oh, long, so very long, ago"—"Nay, nay, my love, you still are so;You always will be fair to me,—You always will be fair!" said he.
"But I was fairer when a bride;Ah, mock not these gray hairs that know—So swift, so swift the seasons slide,"She murmured,—"seventy winters' snow.""Nay, there," said he, "the lights still hideIn gilded shadows where divideThe locks in hyacinthine flow,While in this mask of age you go."
"Alas! and were it so, unseenEven the mask lies soon. How soon,
