Classic Poem

When children call you, Grandmamma;
And you with thin dark-veined hands
In silence stroke the heads that, Ah!
Recall the glorious smouldering bands
Of sullen gold that bound your brow,
And him who told you how the light
Burst through them when you combed them low
With sidelong head at fall of night:
Before that vision fades away
Just take this message from the Past:
“'Tis love that counteracts decay
And lights and makes all Beauty last.”
And wonder if the love you spared
To starve the light-heart man of rhyme
Has left him low and you grey-haired,
Though you are old, before your time.