The Prime of Life

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,

Rose came by with a smile for me,
And I am thinking that forty year
Isn't the age that it seems to be,
When two pretty brown eyes are near.

Bless me! of life it is just the prime,
A fact that I hope she will understand;
And forty year is a perfect rhyme
To dark brown eyes and a pretty hand.

These gray hairs are by chance, you see —
Boys are sometimes gray, I am told:
Rose came by with a smile for me,
Just as I thought I was getting old.