Margaret

O daughter dear, I used to dream
And fondly wish to know
How you would look and act and seem
When to the teens you'd grow.

Now you have reached that high estate,
And proudly cry, "Thirteen";
And still I long to know your fate
When twenty you have seen.

And when you've passed your twentieth year,
And twenty-third, and more,
I'll wonder how you'll seem when near
To thirty and two score.

And even now my fancy peers
Ahead, and pictures you
As you will be at eighty years,
And even ninety-two.

But 'tis a joy to gaze on you
And know you at thirteen;
And I think you'll be as sweet and true
At a hundred and nineteen.

^___John Edward Everett