THE GOLDEN WEDDING.
JOINED each to each for better or for worse,
How have their fifty years of wedlock fled;
Time's shadows turned to silver on each head
That now we crown with laurel-wreath of verse
Not for good deeds that loud tongues might rehearse
And trumpet east and west for men's acclaim—
Those deeds of love too numberless to name
That all these years in silentness immerse;
Nay, not for anything possessed or done
We crown them with the honor doubly due,
But in our grateful joy, because the Hand
Which wrought the mystery of twain made one,
Upon this Golden Feast shows forth anew
How fair that state may be, in Eden planned.
How have their fifty years of wedlock fled;
Time's shadows turned to silver on each head
That now we crown with laurel-wreath of verse
Not for good deeds that loud tongues might rehearse
And trumpet east and west for men's acclaim—
Those deeds of love too numberless to name
That all these years in silentness immerse;
Nay, not for anything possessed or done
We crown them with the honor doubly due,
But in our grateful joy, because the Hand
Which wrought the mystery of twain made one,
Upon this Golden Feast shows forth anew
How fair that state may be, in Eden planned.
216
