Classic Poem

Art thou then one of my compeers?
Can this surprising tale be truth?
Dost thou sustain the weight of years
That crushed in me the soul of youth?

With how light steps must Time have gone,
My softly-blooming friend, o'er thee!—
What shoes of lead has he put on
To leave these livid marks on me!

For thy dear sake did he forego
The rude unwelcome ways he hath?
Would that he always journeyed so—
Thus rather brushed than trod his path!

And Nature—by what kind caprice
Hath she forborne those lustrous locks—
Preserved for thee a young lamb's fleece
Amid the dusky full-grown flocks?

But perhaps I read your meaning wrong
And this you'd have me take for true,
That I, who seem to have lived so long
Am yet no older, Sweet, than you.

Well! 'tis a bright creative thought,
A rich and most enriching blindness;
Youth's roses, long so vainly sought,
Spring up beneath that gaze of kindness.

I'll keep the fairy gifts you bring
With all the rest that Time has granted;
No shade advancing years can fling
On charms by Love and Fancy planted.