To Peggy on her Twentieth Birthday When first I held you in my arms, Oh twenty years are long— And fondly called you Margaret; As in the poet’s song. I thought that you were mine alone, As in a world apart, A tiny bit of elfin grace, To cherish in my heart. But not for long, for Daddy’s pet, And “Peggy” you became; To suit your tilted Irish nose, And gone my lovely name! Where did the years that followed go? When did you get full grown? What happened to that age old dream, And why am I alone? Again I seem to walk with you Along those childhood shores, And wish that I had found the key To that locked heart of yours. And as I view in retrospect, The swiftly passing years, I wonder what I might have done To banish all your fears. There is a truth I’d have you keep Nor let dark doubt erase That nothing in this world can take A first born daughter’s place. Mabel E. Plaskett.
Author Mabel Plaskett
Mabel Sans Plaskett was born in Coralitas near Ben Lomond in the Santa Cruz Mountain area of California. Her father Edward Robert Sans ran a saw mill near Pacific Valley, along the Nacimiento - Ferguson road to the coast at Highway One. It was there she met Edward Abbott Plaskett, her husband. Mabel wrote about the coast and the pioneers of the 19th and 20th Centuries.