To One Who Wished Me Sixteen Years Old. by Alice Cary

Suppose your hand with power supplied,
Say, would you slip it ’neath my hair.
And turn it to the golden side
Of sixteen years? Suppose you dare,

And I stood here with smiling mouth,
Red cheeks, and hands all softly white,
Exceeding beautiful with youth,
And that some tiptoe-treading sprite

Brought dreams as bright as they could be,
To keep the shadows from my brow,
And plucked down hearts to pleasure me,
As you would roses from a bough.

What could I do then? Idly wear,
While all my mates went on before,
The bashful looks and golden hair
Of sixteen years! and nothing more?

Nay, done with youth are my desires,
Life has no pain I fear to meet;
Experience, with its dreadful fires,
Melts knowledge to a welding heat.

And all its fires of heart and brain,
Where purpose into power was wrought,
I’d bear, and gladly bear again,
Rather than be put back a thought.

So, sigh no more, my gentle friend,
That I am at the time of day
When white hair comes, and heart-beats send
No blushes through the cheeks astray.

For could you mould my destiny,
As clay, within your loving hand,
I’d leave my youth’s sweet company,
And suffer back to where I stand.