Edward

Who are you, lad? Speak out the truth!
Our Edward? What a whopper!
Our Edward is a pretty babe
In white gowns, starched and proper.

What? Ten years old? And can it be?
Am I awake or dreaming?
Is this a world of real things,
Or just a world of seeming?

I'd say 'twere but last week, or so,
We heard your lusty squallings,
And saw your first attempts to walk,
With tumblings hard, and sprawlings;

And picked you up, and coddled you,
And kissed away your sighing;
And tossed and jolted you and said;
"There, baby, stop your crying."

They say that time is slow, and halts;^___
'Tis wrong; it never lingers.
The years are very smooth, like eels,
And slip right through one's fingers.

So I must own you're ten years old,
By evidence conclusive,^___
Though past belief did I not know
The years are so elusive.

Quillings In Verse
John Edward Everett
(Smith Center: ^___. 1912)
Pages 100-101