POETRY.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2292, 6 August 1881, Page 3

POETRY.

THE FORTY-SECOND BIRTHDAY. [“ Morford’s Magazine.”! With frosts of silver in her hair, Discerned by close inspection's art. But none—thank God !—spite all life'* care, Yet fallen on the heart; With scarce a line on cheek or brow To tell the Great Destroyer’s march. And childhood’s frankness, ripened now, Beneath the eyebrow’s arch; Still every year the dearer grown From what the earlier seasons knew— So to my darling, loved since known. Comes ripening forty-two. " So old !” she eayu, and shakes abroad Her wondrous wealth of dark-brown curls, That o’er her sweet brow wave and nod. Luxuriant, like a girl’s. “So old 1 I cannot quite believe That all those summer days have flown. Or wintry winds, those frosts to weave. Been round me making moan ! So old !” Ah, God, if you are old. My darling, what am I who speak, Who nearly twenty years had told Ere life first kissed your check ? No ! no ! not old ! Life’s bubbling wine Of youth, indeed, may sparkle less Than in those years, both yours and mine, That knew hope’s fond caress ; But let us trust that much remains Of that moat worthy, ripened thought, Because through thousand tears and pains. By long experience wrought— That afternoons may be as sweet As ever summer’s mornings were. When wo have learned their hours to meet Sans boldness or despair. So, forty-two or twenty-one— What matter if the heart be young, i And loving words, long since begun, Yet linger on the tongue ? There are who dry as summer dust Find all, because they make it so ; There are who love, and hope, and trust. And keep life’s early glow Till age’s lengthened shadows fall, And heaven in raptured sight appears, Defying fate’s and fortune’s thrall, And victors o’er the years !

So may it bo for her who hears ! So may it be for him who speaks ! No matter what those envious years May write upon our ohcets. “ It is not all of life to live, It is not all of death to die,” Bald one of old, most fit to give Sage counsel wise and high ! Remembering thus, who dares to say That eve may not return to noon, And every year that glides away Confer life’s noblest boon ? What if in God’s eternal plan It seould be written down, indeed, Too blindly for the eye of man In his mad race to read— That what seems age and chill decay Is but the veriest, strangest truth, The treading of an unknown way To blest eternal youth ? Then forty-two and twenty-one Would be more blest and welcome far, As nearer to that Central Sun In which all blessings are ? May this not be so ? Who can tell ? Nay, who has any need to know Before the last and warning bell Shall ring for us below ? Ho who hath made us from the dust. And given so much of earthly bliss. May well receive our childlike trust In questions like this. In God’s Good Time—ay, lot the phrase Spring forth alike from lips and heart — Begin, increase, resolve our daysGrow weary and depart.