HUSBAND and wife for fourteen years! <br />And just like children now, <br />As fond of one another as <br />The day they took their vow. <br />Where he goes she goes, hand in hand, <br />And thus their record sums, <br />Through all those years of joy and strife <br />They really have been chums. <br /> <br />Husband and wife. No, more than that, <br />For husbands oft are known, <br />In search of pleasure now and then, <br />To journey off alone; <br />And wives have clubs and other things <br />That interest them more <br />Than business plans their husbands make, <br />When honeymooning's o'er. <br /> <br />Not so with them — through weal or woe, <br />Through sunshine and through rain, <br />Together they have journeyed on; <br />She cheered when all seemed vain. <br />His greatest joys have always been <br />The ones that she could share, <br />We knew that when we saw the one, <br />The other must be there. <br /> <br />If I could change the marriage rite <br />That binds a pair for life, <br />'T would be to drop that stilted phrase, <br />'You 're husband, now, and wife.' <br />For just one little word, I think, <br />The knot far more becomes; <br />I 'd like to hear the parson say: <br />'Beloved, now you 're chums.'<br /><br />Edgar Albert Guest<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/chums-2/
