Classic Poem

DECEMBER — 1884

YOUR Golden Wedding! — fifty years
Of comradeship, through smiles and tears!
Through summer sun, and winter sleet,
You walked the ways with willing feet;
For, journeying together thus,
Each path held something glorious.
No winter wind could blow so chill
But found you even warmer still
In fervor of affection — blest
In knowing all was for the best;
And so, content, you faced the storm
And fared on, smiling, arm in arm.

But why this moralizing strain
Beside a hearth that glows again
As on your Wooden wedding-day? —
When butter-prints and paddles lay
Around in dough-bowls, tubs and churns,
And all such " woodenish " concerns;
And " woodenish " they are — for now
Who can afford to keep a cow
And pestle some old churn, when you
Can buy good butter — " golden, " too —
Far cheaper than you can afford
To make it and neglect the Lord!

And round your hearth the faces gleam
That may recall, as in a dream,
The brightness of a time when Tin
Came glittering and clanging in
And raising noise enough to seize
And settle any swarm of bees!
But those were darling times, no doubt, —
To see the mother pouring out
The " tins " of milk, and tilting up
The coffee-pot above each cup;
Or, with the ladle from the wall,
Dipping and serving mush for all.

And all the " weddings, " as they came, —
The " Glass, " the " China, " — still the same
You see them, till the last ere this, —
The " Silver, " and your wedded bliss
Abated not! — for love appears
Just silvered over with the years: —
Silver the grandchild's laugh you hear —
Silver his hopes, and silver-clear
Your every prayer for him, — and still
Silver your hope, through good and ill —
Silver and silver everywhere,
Bright as the silver of your hair!

But on your Golden Wedding! — Nay —
What can I give to you to-day
Who am too very poor indeed
To offer what I so much need?
If gold I gave, I fear, alack!
I'd needs provide you gave it back,
To stay me, the long years before
I'd stacked and heaped five dollars more!
And so, in lieu — and little worse —
I proffer you this dross of verse —
The merest tinsel, I admit, —
But take it — I have more of it.