five little girls, of five, four, three, two, one:

rolling on the hearthrug, full of tricks and fun.

five rosy girls, in years from ten to six:

sitting down to lessons — no more time for tricks.

five growing girls, from fifteen to eleven:

music, drawing, languages, and food enough for seven!

five winsome girls, from twenty to sixteen:

each young man that calls, i say “now tell me which you mean!”

five dashing girls, the youngest twenty-one:

but, if nobody proposes, what is there to be done?

five showy girls — but thirty is an age

when girls may be engaging, but they somehow don’t engage.

five dressy girls, of thirty-one or more:

so gracious to the shy young men they snubbed so much before!

five passe girls — their age? well, never mind!

we jog along together, like the rest of human kind:

but the quondam “careless bachelor” begins to think he knows

the answer to that ancient problem “how the money goes”!