Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, KEEP EACH OTHER YOUNG, by DOUGLAS MALLOCH


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

KEEP EACH OTHER YOUNG, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The wife and I have kept our youth and kept it / pretty well
Last Line: The way that we have kept so young is keeping young each other.
Subject(s): Family Life; Relatives


The wife and I have kept our youth and kept it pretty well,
But just how long, the honest truth I don't intend to tell.
We've had a lot of babies, yes, and had a lot of bother,
As ev'ryone must have, I guess, a mother and a father.
But she has kept the wrinkles out and kept the roses in,
And, though I've lost some hair, no doubt, it isn't very thin.
And here is how we got along, we managed, me and Mother:
If joy or pain, or sob or song, we shared it with each other.

For younger you will never keep, when older you have grown,
If day by day you work and weep and worry on alone.
It isn't trouble makes us old, it isn't stormy weather --
It's hearts a-sunder growing cold, not keeping warm together.
I sometimes think the rainy day, the doctor bills, the debt,
Instead of turning us to gray have made us younger yet;
The rocks and reefs of life among, we've passed 'em, me and Mother --
The way that we have kept so young is keeping young each other.





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