Great-grandma sat in her hickory chair In the dusk of the long ago; On her knee was spread an old scrapbook, And she read in the dim afterglow: "I am not old, I cannot be old, Though threescore years and ten Have waved away, like a tale that is told, The lives of many men." Grandmother sat in the same old chair When her hair was white as the snow; Turning pages of the same old book, She read in a voice, soft and low: "I am not old, I cannot be old, Though tottering, wrinkled, and gray; Though my eyes be dim, and my marrow cold, Call me not old today!" Then mother sat in that hickory chair In a faraway western land; As the years sped past, she too would read, As she held the book in her hand: "A dream, a dream, -- it is all a dream! A strange, sad dream, good sooth; For old as I am, and old as I seem, My heart is full of youth." The same chair stands beside my fireplace; -- It is sturdy, though black with age; And on it I keep the old scrapbook And I read from a yellowed page: "Forever young -- though Life's old age Hath every nerve unstrung; The heart, the heart is the heritage That keeps us forever young." |