How the great Master, reverend, solemn, wise,

Fixed on his face those calm, majestic eyes,

Full of grave meaning, where a child might read

The Hebraist’s patience and the Pilgrim’s creed.

But warm with flashes of parental fire

That drew the stripling to his second sire;

How kindness ripened, till the youth might dare

Take the low seat beside his sacred chair,

While the gray scholar, bending o’er the young,

Spelled the square types of Abraham’s ancient tongue,