Ere Long

By this time, my dear, you’ve ag’d past your prime,

The beauty you once possess’d no longer

Will help catch the eye of the pass’r-by,

Brother-in-law, tailor, or fish-mong’r.

One knows beauty cannot reside inside,

And that physique triumphs over virtue,

The only beauty left is in the eyes

Of the drunk beholder, not of thy two.

A pity that your faithful children dear

Can’t claim their mother as their beauty’s core,

But if thy children are still young, I fear

That nature’s prematurely run its course.

  Tis a shame thou can’t again be made young,

  My hope was that you’d find a way ere long.