The Age of Ink

Swiftly the changes come. Each day

Sees some lost beauty blown away

And some new touch of lovely grace

Come into life to take its place.

The little babe that once we had

One morning woke a roguish lad;

The babe that we had put to bed

Out of our arms and lives had fled.

Frocks vanished from our castle then,

Ne'er to be worn or seen again,

And in his knickerbocker pride

He boasted pockets at each side

And stored them deep with various things —

Stones, tops and jacks and-colored strings;

Then for a time we claimed the joy

Of calling him our little boy.

Brief was the reign of such a spell.

One morning sounded out a bell;

With tears I saw her brown eyes swim

And knew that it was calling him.

Time, the harsh master of us all,

Was bidding him to heed his call;

This shadow fell across life's pool —

Our boy was on his way to school.

Our little boy! And still we dreamed,

For such a little boy he seemed!

And yesterday, with eyes aglow

Like one who has just come to know

Some great and unexpected bliss,

He bounded in, announcing this:

“Oh, Dad! Oh, Ma! Say, what d'you think?

This year we're going to write with ink!”

Here was a change I'd not foreseen,

Another step from what had been.

I paused a little while to think

About this older age of ink —

What follows this great step, thought I,

What next shall come as the time goes by?

And something said: “His pathway leads

Unto the day he'll write with deeds.”