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Title: To Two Young Ladies
Author: William Johnson Cory [
More Titles by Cory]
There are, I've read, two troops of years,
One troop is called the teens;
They bring sweet gifts to little dears,
Ediths and Geraldines.
The others have no certain name,
Though children of the sun,
They come to wrinkled men, and claim
Their treasures one by one.
There is a hermit faint and dry,
In things called rhymes he dabbles,
And seventeen months have heard him sigh
For Cissy and for Babbles.
Once, when he seemed to be bedridden,
These girls said, "Make us lines,"
He tried to court, as he was bidden,
His vanished Valentines.
Now, three days late, yet ere they ask,
He's meekly undertaken
To do his sentimental task,
Philandering, though forsaken.
I pace my paradise, and long
To show it off to Peris;
They come not, but it can't be wrong
To raise their ghosts by queries.
Is Geraldine in flowing robes?
Has Edith rippling curls?
And do their ears prolong the lobes
Weighed down with gold and pearls?
And do they know the verbs of France?
And do they play duetts?
And do they blush when led to dance?
And are they called coquettes?
Oh, Cissy, if the heartless year
Sets our brief loves asunder!
Oh, Babbles, whom I daren't call dear!
What can I do but wonder?
I wonder what you're both become,
Whether you're children still;
I pause with fingers twain and thumb
Closed on my faltering quill;
I pause to think how I decay,
And you win grace from Time.
Perhaps ill-natured folks would say
He's pausing for a rhyme.
The sun, who drew us far apart,
Might lessen my regrets,
Would he but deign to use his art
In painting your vignettes.
Then though I groaned for losing half
Of joys that memory traces,
I could forego the talk, the laugh,
In welcoming the faces.
[The end]
William Johnson Cory's poem: To Two Young Ladies
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