A young woman has mocked the speaker for his gray hair, and he fires back with a prophetic warning: your youth is just as temporary. He tells her, plainly, that she has only "your day," and soon her own hair will carry the same frost and snow. The mirror, once flattering, will one day show no hint of a rosebud in her cheek—no flush of that fresh carnation beauty. The poem’s real twist arrives in the final lines, where he imagines her alone, weeping in her room. Those tears, he says, will be the proof that reveals her age. His tone is sharp and a little smug, but beneath the gloating there’s a genuine sadness about the passage of time. The mood is rueful and quietly revengeful—a cold kind of comfort in knowing that no one’s bloom lasts.
TO A GENTLEWOMAN, OBJECTING TO HIM HISGRAY HAIRS — Summary
Am I despised, because you say; And I dare swear, that I am gray? Know, Lady, you have but your day! And time will come when you shall wear Such frost and snow upon your hair; And when, though long, it comes to pass, You question with your looking-glass, And in that sincere crystal seek But find no rose-bud in your cheek, Nor any bed to give the shew Where such a rare carnation grew:- Ah! then too late, close in your chamber keeping, It will be told That you are old,-- By those true tears you're weeping.