O never to such long
Glory in life, supremacy in song,
Had either of these loves attained in joy,
But for the ministration of a boy.
Dante was one who bare
Love in his deep heart, apprehended there
When he was yet a child; and from that day
The radiant love has never passed away.
And one was Wordsworth; he
Conceived the love of Nature childishly
As no adult heart might; old poets sing
That exaltation by remembering.
For no divine
Intelligence, or art, or fire, or wine,
Is high-delirious as that rising lark—
The child's soul and its daybreak in the dark.
And Letters keep these two
Heavenly treasures safe the ages through,
Safe from ignoble benison or ban—
These two high childhoods in the heart of man.
TO SYLVIA
TWO YEARS OLD
Long life to thee, long virtue, long delight,
A flowering early and late!
Long beauty, grave to thought and gay to sight,
A distant date!
Yet, as so many poets love to sing
(When young the child will die),
"No autumn will destroy this lovely spring,"
So, Sylvia, I.
I'll write thee dapper verse and touching rhyme;
"Our eyes shall not behold—"
The commonplace shall serve for thee this time:
"Never grow old."