Part 2 — THE PRIME OF LIFE
Reading edition
Just as I thought I was growing old, Ready to sit in my easy chair, To watch the world with a heart grown cold, And smile at a folly I would not share,
Rose came by with a smile for me, And I am thinking that forty year Isn't the age that it seems to be, When two pretty brown eyes are near.
Bless me! of life it is just the prime, A fact that I hope she will understand; And forty year is a perfect rhyme To dark brown eyes and a pretty hand.
These gray hairs are by chance, you see— Boys are sometimes gray, I am told: Rose came by with a smile for me, Just as I thought I was getting old.
Walter Learned [1847-1915]