Poems (Barker)/Growing Old Together

by Alice J. Green Barker

Growing Old Together.

TO MY HUSBAND,
———
What matters it, we're growing old—
 We're growing old together,
With hand in hand, and heart to heart,
 We mind not stormy weather.
Our little boat is nobly manned,
 Love, Faith and Hope shall guide it,
We'll stand together, side by side
 And brave all that betides it.

Our arms are strong, our hearts are firm,
 To bear life's ills and losses;
We hold a passport to a land,
 Beyond these earthly crosses.
Your step is firm, as yet, my love,
 Your cheek with health is glowing,
And in your veins the pure bright blood
 Of manhood's prime is flowing.

And I am not the simple girl,
 Whose heart you crowned with loving:
A woman in your home to-day
 Her woman's heart is proving.
And as the years go swiftly by,
 Life's phases all must alter,
My hair with yours will gather snow;
 My steps with yours will falter.

I would not hear you mourn, dear one,
 That time so fleet is flying,
For many rich and fruitful years
 Before our feet are lying.
We'll try and make each moment bright,
 We'll fill the years with gladness,
And live, to drive from other hearts,
 The sorrow, and the sadness.

We'll live to scatter seeds of good,
 To water and to tend them;
We'll make full many sad mistakes,
 We'll live, my own, to mend them.
And when our heads with snow are bent,
 Like trees in wintry weather,
We will not mind the growing old,
 We will be old together.