Phantasmagoria and Other Poems

Five little girls, of Five, Four, Three, Two, One:

Rolling 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 mean!"

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 passe 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"!