Sweethearts and Wives

IF sweethearts were sweethearts always,

Whether as maid or wife,

No drop would be half so pleasant

In the mingled draught of life.

But the sweetheart has smiles and blushes

When the wife has frowns and sighs,

And the wife’s have a wrathful glitter

For the glow of the sweetheart’s eyes.

If lovers were lovers always,

The same to sweetheart and wife,

Who would change for a future of Eden

The joys of this checkered life?

But husbands grow grave and silent,

And cares on the anxious brow

Oft replace the sunshine that perished

At the words of the marriage vow.

Happy is he whose sweetheart

Is wife and sweetheart still—

Whose voice, as of old, can charm;

Whose kiss, as of old, can thrill;

Who has plucked the rose, to find ever

Its beauty and fragrance increase,

As the flush of passion is mellowed

In love’s unmeasured peace;

Who sees in the step a lightness;

Who finds in the form a grace;

Who reads an unaltered brightness

In the witchery of the face,

Undimmed and unchanged. Ah! happy

Is he crowned with such a life,

Who drinks the wife, pledging the sweetheart,

And toasts in the sweetheart the wife.