Page:Poems of home and country (IA poemsofhomecount01smit).pdf/51

 The days, in love and blessing,

Like glancing sunbeams sped,

Since angels sang, responsive,

Around her cradle-bed;

They chanted love and promise,

Not time, or years, to be;

No matter what the number,

Perhaps 't is fifty-three.

EHOLD, dear wife, how things have changed,

Through sunshine and through showers;

The spring has ripened into fall,

The buds have turned to flowers.

What long, wide paths our feet have trod,

Since the far days of old!

But love has changed each woe to good,

The silver moon to gold.

These fifty years of wedded love,

How brief and few they seem!

Swift as a summer-day of joy,

Eventful as a dream!

The babes we fostered long ago,

And called them "children" then;

The girls are into mothers grown,

The boys to stalwart men.