| Fuess and Stearns, comps. The Little Book of Society Verse. 1922. | | | | The Prime of Life | | By Walter Learned |
| | | 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, | |
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| Rose came by with a smile for me, | 5 |
| And I am thinking that forty year | |
| Is n’t the age that it seems to be, | |
| When two pretty brown eyes are near. | |
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| Bless me! of life it is just the prime, | |
| A fact that I hope she will understand; | 10 |
| And forty year is a perfect rhyme | |
| To dark brown eyes and a pretty hand. | |
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| These gray hairs are by chance, you see— | |
| Boys are sometimes gray, I am told: | |
| Rose came by with a smile for me, | 15 |
| Just as I thought I was getting old. | | | | |
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