SEXAGENARIUS LOQUITUR

From our youth to our age

We have passed each stage

In old immemorial order,

From primitive days

Through flowery ways

With love like a hedge as their border.

Ah, youth was a kingdom of joy,

And we were the king and the queen,

When I was a year

Short of thirty, my dear,

And you were just nearing nineteen.

But dark follows light

And day follows night

As the old planet circles the sun;

And nature still traces

Her score on our faces

And tallies the years as they run.

Have they chilled the old warmth in your heart?

I swear that they have not in mine,

Though I am a year

Short of sixty, my dear,

And you are well, say thirty-nine.