Page:The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858) Holmes.djvu/103

While the swift seasons hurry back
To find the wished-for day?"

—Ah, truest soul of womankind!
Without thee, what were life?
One bliss I cannot leave behind:
I'll take—my—precious—wife!

—The angel took a sapphire pen
And wrote in rainbow dew,
"The man would be a boy again,
And be a husband too!"

—"And is there nothing yet unsaid
Before the change appears?
Remember, all their gifts have fled
With those dissolving years!"

Why, yes; for memory would recall
My fond paternal joys;
I could not bear to leave them all;
I'll take—my—girl—and—boys!

The smiling angel dropped his pen,—
"Why this will never do;
The man would be a boy again,
And be a father too!"

And so I laughed,—my laughter woke
The household with its noise,—
And wrote my dream, when morning broke,
To please the gray-haired boys.