Inscribed to Miss Kittie J. Putnam
"Maggie's Answer" (1868)
A Response to
"When You and I Were Young"
Song and Chorus
Composed by
James Austin Butterfield (1837-1891)

1.
I know dearest Ralph your are a-ged and gray,
Your steps are now feeble and slow,
Your once noble form is now bent by the storm,
All must weather while waiting below,
The merry's creak' bed you say now is dry,
A silent the creaking old mill.
But "songs without words" are still sung by the birds,
Tho' the green grove is gone from the hill.

CHORUS
Yet Ralph, dearest Ralph, with our hearts strong and true,
Still faithful and trusting and fond;
We'll sing the same songs we sang in days gone,
Till we're called to the bright world beyond.

2.
'Tis true dearest Ralph in that city of stone,
Lie many dear friends that we love,
The casket once fair, is now moldering there,
But the jewel is soaring above,
The young and the gay and the best are all there.
Our own darling's gone with the rest,
It cannot be lone e'er we to join the throng,
Moving on to the land of the blest.

(CHORUS)

3.
Although dearest Ralph we are feeble and old,
Still our love time nor age cannot change,
Thro' the journey of life 'mid the toil and the strife,
Naught between us e'er came to estrange,
We feel that this earth life is fading away,
But we know there's a better to come
In that bright world above in its sunlight of love,
Then again you and I will be young.

(CHORUS)