With gradual gleam the day was dawning,
Some lingering stars were seen,
When swung the garden-gate behind us,—
He fifty, I fifteen.

The high-topped chaise and old gray pony
Stood waiting in the lane:
Idly my father swayed the whip-lash,
Lightly he held the rein.

The stars went softly back to heaven,
The night-fogs rolled away,
And rims of gold and crowns of crimson
Along the hill-tops lay.

That morn, the fields, they surely never
So fair an aspect wore;
And never from the purple clover
Such perfume rose before.

O'er hills and low romantic valleys
And flowery by-roads through,
I sang my simplest songs, familiar,
That he might sing them too.

Our souls lay open to all pleasure,—
No shadow came between;
Two children, busy with their leisure,—
He fifty, I fifteen.

* * * * *

As on my couch in languor, lonely,
I weave beguiling rhyme,
Comes back with strangely sweet remembrance
That far-removed time.

The slow-paced years have brought sad changes,
That morn and this between;
And now, on earth, my years are fifty,
And his, in heaven, fifteen.