Page 29 - Poetry-Family

Said the clerk with much gravity, “Let me explain.”
“No, sir! you’ll please give me my money again!
I haven’t a doubt you can talk like a book,
But I am not so verdant, my friend, as I look!”

— Margaret Vandegrift (Century Magazine, 1886)

Fourteen

What! five feet six? How fast Time flies!
Nor stays to dine or sup.
You came but yesterday, dear Fred,
And, lo! you’re quite grown up.
Oh, roaming Greybeard, with the scythe,
Have you no spark of ruth,
That, not content with plaguing age,
You dog defenceless youth?

Our little boy—our little boy !
Oh, gradual change unblest!
Into what land, pray, has he gone,
Where futile seems all quest?
How shall we call you? For to-day
One looks at you to see
Only a someone who just was,
And someone yet to be.

In jacket-trim no more you hie;
A cap is gear that’s past.
You criticise, with anxious eye,
The shoemaker’s best last.
Oh, shapely knickerbockered legs,

~ 27 ~