THE THREE AGES.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 11, 12 March 1892, Page 249

THE THREE AGES.

(FROM THE FRENCH OF MARIE CONSTANTIN.) Mv dears, when I was young like you— O, days that long ago took wing ! — I had your wit, your sweetness, too, . And loved, like you, the spring. Fondly do I remember still How dear to me were fields and Howers ; How dear the hearts in lighter hours Made captive in the gay quadrille ; A merry child like you, my dears, And such was I at fifteen years. Later, my heart, less wild and gay, To one devout espousal moved ; And wedded joys, how sweet are they, To love and to be loved ! But sometimes, pensive and apart, I prayed in secret sighs to heaven That some dear angel might be given To stir in me a mother’s heart ; Wife and fond mother, too, my dears, And such was I at thirty years. O later ! Onward still and on Time flies, like an advancing wave, And summer, autumn, both are gone, With all the joys they gave ! Yet, while we droop with age and pain, The heart that to our babes we give In their sweet innocence may live, And with their babes be young again ; And such am I at length my dears, With my full span of eighty years. George Cotterell.