The poem
Five little girls, of Five, Four, Three, Two, One: Rolling on the hearthrug, full of tricks and fun.
Five rosy girls, in years from Ten to Six: Sitting down to lessons - no more time for tricks.
Five growing girls, from Fifteen to Eleven: Music, Drawing, Languages, and food enough for seven!
Five winsome girls, from Twenty to Sixteen: Each young man that calls, I say "Now tell me which you MEAN!"
Five dashing girls, the youngest Twenty-one: But, if nobody proposes, what is there to be done?
Five showy girls - but Thirty is an age When girls may be ENGAGING, but they somehow don't ENGAGE.
Five dressy girls, of Thirty-one or more: So gracious to the shy young men they snubbed so much before!
Five PASSE girls - Their age? Well, never mind! We jog along together, like the rest of human kind: But the quondam "careless bachelor" begins to think he knows The answer to that ancient problem "how the money goes"!