to julia and frank on the occasion of their forty-first wedding anniversary

a forty-first anniversary poem by Lisa Colson Reynolds for her sister Julia Colson Hall and her brother-in-law Frank C. Hall

There once was a guy
With a connoisseur's eye
For damsels with beauty and style.
One day in his youth
He found one, forsooth,
In a church as he walked down the aisle.

For there is a pew
Sat the one maiden who
Would gladden him all of his life.
He wooed her and won,
And ere it was done,
She agreed she would soon be his wife.

So this lovely young maid
And her gay, handsome blade
Were married on Valentine's Day.
It was proper and right
That these two should plight
Their troth in a romantic way.

And all through the years
They were quite without peers
In connubial joy and delight.
In their marital bliss,
With a smile or a kiss,
They kept their love shining and bright.

After forty-one years,
Mostly gladness, some tears,
They look back together and smile.
To her he has stayed
A handsome young blade,
And to him she's a beauty with style.

© Lisa Colson Reynolds, February 14, 1963