My First Gray Hair

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Title:     My First Gray Hair
Author: Mary Alice Walton [More Titles by Walton]

One day amid brown tresses there gleamed a silvery thread,
Life pages, past and present I wonderingly then read.
I saw a blithsome maiden, a child serenely fair,
A woman heavey laden now lifts her first gray hair.

  CHORUS.
  O silvery strand, thou soft kiss of time,
    The beauties of youth are now past, are now past.
  For evening of life are pleasures unknown,
    'Tis love, only love, that will last, that will last.

Upon the shadowy threshold the small gray strand did lay,
And told the old, old story of ever changing day;
Within the mystic portals of life's near ending stream
I stood and pondered vaguely, if death were but a dream.

I viewed the snow-white message and thought of bygone years,
The hopes, the waging conflicts, joys mingled oft' with tears.
Tell me, thou thing of pearl hue, what will the future greet?
Will paths be strewn with roses, or thistles tear my feet?

A whisper floated near me in accents sweet and low,
"My child, what'er thy portion, if tares for thee will grow,
Thy soul keep pure and stainless, a crown thy brow shall wear,
'Twill shine with whitest tresses, that once was nut-brown hair."

[The end]
Mary Alice Walton's poem: My First Gray Hair

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