The Pilgrim at Thirty

[The Pilgrim has received a number of very meaningful tokens of appreciation on the occasion of her thirtieth birthday -- the most profound of which have tended to come in the form of time invested in her, hugs and kind words. The following, however, is the hard-to-beat ode presented to the Pilgrim by a friend.]

A Lady thinks She is Thirty

Unwillingly Miranda wakes,
Feels the sun with terror,
One unwilling step she takes,
Shuddering to the mirror.

Miranda in Miranda's sight
Is old and gray and dirty;
Twenty-nine she was last night;
This morning she is thirty.

Shining like the morning star,
Like the twilight shining,
Haunted by a calendar,
Miranda sits a-pining.

Silly girl, silver girl,
Draw the mirror toward you;
Time who makes the years to whirl
Adorned as he adorned you.

Time is timelessness for you;
Calendars for the human;
What's a year, or thirty, to
Loveliness made woman?

Oh, Night will not see thirty again,
Yet soft her wing, Miranda;
Pick up your glass and tell me, then --
How old is Spring, Miranda?

- Ogden Nash