The Rhode Island Republican

POETRY.

TO MARY.

On the anniversary of our wedding day: by
Archer Shee, Esq. R. A.

Our wedding day!--another stage,
In full career from youth to age,
We've travelled on together;
Yet still affection cheers the road,
And helps to lighten every load,
That time has laid on either.

Nor can we, Mary, justly say,
Though neither quite so young nor gay,
As when cold Prudence spurning,
We scampered forth for pleasure's sake,
And fortune thought to overtake,
Or meet at every turning.

Nor can we say we're much the worse,
For such a long and anxious course,
With care still at our heels;
And such a household troop around,
As Hymen has too often found
A drag upon his wheels.

'Tis true we rarely dance or sing,
Or bound with that elastic spring,
The steps of Youth discover;
But, had quadrilles not cut us out,
Our dancing days, I make no doubt,
We'd prove were not yet over.

Thy figure still preserves its grace,
And still that charm is in thy face,
As strong as first I found it,
The smile with sense and sweetness fraught,
Which breaks through every cloud of thought
And spreads a sunshine round it

Our bloom indeed is gone, and you
Must own this more than mellow hue
Supplies its place but badly;
Some wrinkles too we must allow,
Have mark'd the tablet of the brow,
And though they are but slight there,
They show his hieroglyphic hand,
And make us fully understand,
Old Time begins to write there.

Already he has clear'd the page,
And stamp'd some characters of age,
So plain that you may trace them;
He has thinn'd my locks, and turn'd to gray
The few remaining;--I say
A wig must soon replace them.

Of late, too, quite in love with home,
We seldom feel disposed to roam,
The fire-side seems so cozy,
But when I fain would read at night
The candles give such wretched light,
I'm sometimes rather dozy.

The print's indeed so bad in all
Their books--the type's so very small--
'Tis quite enough to vex one'
The newspaper, I'm sure supplies
A task to try the best of eyes,
Without a pair of specs on.

But not in us alone the change :
Through life and manners as we range,
The world around keeps moving;
Follies increase upon my word'
And fashions now are so absurd,
There's nothing that's improving

Yet still no changes can destroy
Our pleasures, while we thus enjoy
The circle that's around us,
While in our children thus we find
More comforts than we've left behind,
Since Hymen's knot first bound us.

Nor let us gloom the little space
We've yet to run, though in the race
We feel that life is wasting;
Our lot we still have cause to bless,
Since, as our cares our hearts confess,
Our love is quite as lasting.