FIVE little girls, of Five, Four, Three, Two, One: Roiling on the hearthrug, full of tricks and fun. Five rosy girls, in years from Ten to Six: Sitting down to lessons—no more time for tricks. Five growing girls, from Fifteen to Eleven: Music, Drawing, Languages, and food enough for seven! Five winsome girls, from Twenty to Sixteen: Each young man that calls, I say "Now tell me which you @3mean!"@1 Five dashing girls, the youngest Twenty-one: But, if nobody proposes, what is there to be done? Five showy girls—but Thirty is an age When girls may be engaging, but they somehow don't engage. Five dressy girls, of Thirty-one or more: So gracious to the shy young men they snubbed so much before! Five @3passé@1 girls—Their age? Well, never mind! We jog along together, like the rest of human kind: But the quondam "careless bachelor" begins to think he knows The answer to that ancient problem "how the money goes!" | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE BELLS OF YOUTH by WILLIAM SHARP SONGS OF TRAVEL: 44 by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON A PRAYER FOR LOVE by ELSA BARKER LEAVES A-VALLEN by WILLIAM BARNES ANNIVERS: BAPTISMI by JOSEPH BEAUMONT OTHER LITTLE SHIPS by EDNA BINTLIFF |