To Mabel

UPON this anniversaree,

My little godchild, aged three,

My compliments I make to thee,

Quite heedless.

And that you ’ll throw them now away,

But treasure them some future day,

Are platitudes, the which to say

Is needless.

You small, stout damsel, muckle mou’d,

With cropped tow-head and manners rude,

And stormy spirit unsubdued

By nurses,

Where you were raised was it in vogue

To lisp that Tipperary brogue?

Oh, you ’re a subject sweet, you rogue,

For verses!

Last Sunday morning when we stayed

At home you got yourself arrayed

In Lyman’s clothes and turned from maid

To urchin.

And when we all laughed at you so,

You eyed outside the falling snow,

And thought your rig quite fit to go

To church in.

Play on, play on, dear little lass!

Play on till sixteen summers pass,

And then I’ll bring a looking-glass,

And there be-

Fore you on your lips I’ll show

The curves of small Dan Cupid’s bow,

And then the crop that now is “tow”

Shall “fair” be.

And then I’ll show you, too, the charms

Of small firm hands and rounded arms,

And eyes whose flashes send alarms

Right through you;

And then a half-regretful sigh

May break from me to think that I,

At forty years, can never try,

To woo you.

What shall I wish you? Free from ruth,

To live and learn in love and truth,

Through childhood’s day and days of youth,

And school’s day.

For all the days that intervene

’Twixt Mab at three and at nineteen,

Are but one sombre or serene

All Fool’s Day.

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