Then and Now.
We had but a humble home,
With few and simple joys;
But my father's step was firm and free,
And my brothers were laughing boys.
We have much that we hoped for then;
Our hearth is broad and bright,
But my brothers now are saddened men,
And my father's hair is white!
— Phoebe Cary
Then and Now, conveys a common 19th-century literary theme: the contrast between youthful innocence and adult sorrow. This was a time when families often faced hardship, loss, and transformation due to war (particularly the Civil War), westward expansion, industrialization, and disease. Many readers would have personally related to the poem’s quiet grief over the passage of time and the fading of youthful joy.
Phoebe Cary (September 4, 1824 – July 31, 1871) was an American poet, and the younger sister of poet Alice Cary (1820–1871). The sisters co-published poems in 1849, and then each went on to publish volumes of their own. After their deaths in 1871, joint anthologies of the sisters' unpublished poems were also compiled
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