| |
| O FOR one hour of youthful joy! | |
| Give back my twentieth spring! | |
| I ’d rather laugh a bright-haired boy | |
| Than reign a gray-beard king! | |
| |
| Off with the spoils of wrinkled age! | 5 |
| Away with learning’s crown! | |
| Tear out life’s wisdom-written page, | |
| And dash its trophies down! | |
| |
| One moment let my life-blood stream | |
| From boyhood’s fount of flame! | 10 |
| Give me one giddy, reeling dream | |
| Of life all love and fame! | |
| |
| My listening angel heard the prayer, | |
| And, calmly smiling, said, | |
| “If I but touch thy silvery hair, | 15 |
| Thy hasty wish has sped. | |
| |
| “But is there nothing in thy track | |
| To bid thee fondly stay, | |
| While the swift seasons hurry back | |
| To find the wished-for day?” | 20 |
| |
| Ah! truest soul of womankind! | |
| Without thee what were life? | |
| One bliss I cannot leave behind: | |
| I ’ll take—my—precious—wife! | |
| |
| The angel took a sapphire pen | 25 |
| And wrote in rainbow dew, | |
| “The man would be a boy again, | |
| And be a husband, too!” | |
| |
| “And is there nothing yet unsaid | |
| Before the change appears? | 30 |
| Remember, all their gifts have fled | |
| With those dissolving years!” | |
| |
| “Why, yes; for memory would recall | |
| My fond paternal joys; | |
| I could not bear to leave them all: | 35 |
| I ’ll take—my—girl—and—boys!” | |
| |
| The smiling angel dropped his pen— | |
| “Why, this will never do; | |
| The man would be a boy again, | |
| And be a father, too!” | 40 |
| |
| And so I laughed—my laughter woke | |
| The household with its noise— | |
| And wrote my dream, when morning broke, | |
| To please the gray-haired boys. | |
| |
