60 YEARS

Some things remain through 60 years

Your married life has seen:

The PM's an Etonian toff,

Elizabeth's still queen.

Still Mr Hutson lovingly

Will whisper Hazel's name

And thinks his Hazel wonderful,

While Hazel thinks the same.

And by some miracle of grace

- Despite what some declare -

No shade of variation harms

The shade of father's hair.

Some trends reverse as Edith and

As Scilla will attest

Those ancient parents we once found

Now have a youthful zest.

But what has marked these sixty years

Through joy or pain or shock

This was a marriage founded on

Christ Jesus as the Rock.

Through joy and sorrows year by year,

Through pleasures or alarms

They know that underneath them are

The everlasting arms

Through sixty years' experience

Of God the Father's care

They can take up another's words

And joyfully declare:

God's perfect love by Christ made known

It sets our hearts aglow;

It gives us to respond to Him,

And makes our praises flow.

Written for the diamond wedding of my parents-in-law on 23 April.  The last verse was by my mother-in-law's father.