Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A GOLDEN WEDDING, by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A GOLDEN WEDDING, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Your golden wedding! - fifty
Last Line: But take it -- I have more of it.
Alternate Author Name(s): Johnson Of Boone, Benj. F.
Subject(s): Love; Marriage; Time; Weddings; Husbands; Wives


YOUR Golden Wedding! -- fifty years
Of comradeship, through smiles and tears!
Through summer sun, and winter sleet,
You walked the ways with willing feet;
For, journeying together thus,
Each path held something glorious.
No winter wind could blow so chill
But found you even warmer still
In fervor of affection -- blest
In knowing all was for the best;
And so, content, you faced the storm
And fared on, smiling, arm in arm.

But why this moralizing strain
Beside a hearth that glows again
As on your Wooden wedding-day? --
When butter-prints and paddles lay
Around in dough-bowls, tubs and churns,
And all such "woodenish" concerns;
And "woodenish" they are -- for now
Who can afford to keep a cow
And pestle some old churn, when you
Can buy good butter -- "golden," too --
Far cheaper than you can afford
To make it and neglect the Lord!

And round your hearth the faces gleam
That may recall, as in a dream,
The brightness of a time when Tin
Came glittering and clanging in
And raising noise enough to seize
And settle any swarm of bees!
But those were darling times, no doubt, --
To see the mother pouring out
The "tins" of milk, and tilting up
The coffee-pot above each cup;
Or, with the ladle from the wall,
Dipping and serving mush for all.

And all the "weddings," as they came, --
The "Glass," the "China," -- still the same
You see them, till the last ere this, --
The "Silver," and your wedded bliss
Abated not! -- for love appears
Just silvered over with the years: --
Silver the grandchild's laugh you hear --
Silver his hopes, and silver-clear
Your every prayer for him, -- and still
Silver your hope, through good and ill --
Silver and silver everywhere,
Bright as the silver of your hair!

But on your Golden Wedding! -- Nay --
What can I give to you to-day
Who am too very poor indeed
To offer what I so much need?
If gold I gave, I fear, alack!
I'd needs provide you gave it back,
To stay me, the long years before
I'd stacked and heaped five dollars more!
And so, in lieu -- and little worse --
I proffer you this dross of verse --
The merest tinsel, I admit, --
But take it -- I have more of it.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net