Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/735

 THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK

Then other lovers came around you,

Your beauty grew from year to year, And many a splendid circle found you

The centre of its glittering sphere. 1 saw you then, first vows forsaking,

On rank and wealth your hand bestow;

But that was forty years ago.

And I lived on, to wed another:

No cause she gave me to repine; And when I heard you were a mother,

I did not wish the children mine. My own young flock, in fair progression,

Made up a pleasant Christmas row: My joy in them was past expression;

But that was thirty years ago.

You grew a matron plump and comely,

You dwelt in fashion's brightest blaze; My earthly lot was far more homely;

But I too had my festal days. No merrier eyes have ever ghsten'd

Around the hearth-stone's wintry glow, Than when my youngest child was christen'd,

But that was twenty years ago.

Time pass'd. My eldest girl was married,

And I am now a grandsire gray; One pet of four years old IVe carried

Among the wild-flower'd meads to play.

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