The Prime of Life

JUST as I thought I was growing old,

Ready to sit in my easy-chair,

To watch the world with a heart grown cold,

And smile at a folly I would not share,

Rose came by with a smile for me,

And I am thinking that forty year

Is n’t the age that it seems to be,

When two pretty brown eyes are near.

Bless me! of life it is just the prime,

A fact that I hope she will understand;

And forty year is a perfect rhyme

To dark brown eyes and a pretty hand.

These gray hairs are by chance, you see—

Boys are sometimes gray, I am told:

Rose came by with a smile for me,

Just as I thought I was getting old.