CHILDHOOD AND HIS VISITORS by WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED

Once on a time, when sunny May
Was kissing up the April showers,
I saw fair Childhood hard at play
Upon a bank of blushing flowers;
Happy, -- he knew not whence or how;
And smiling, -- who could choose but love him?
For not more glad than Childhood's brow,
Was the blue heaven that beamed above him.

Old Time, in most appalling wrath,
That valley's green repose invaded;
The brooks grew dry upon his path,
The birds were mute, the lilies faded;
But Time so swiftly winged his flight,
In haste a Grecian tomb to batter,
That Childhood watched his paper kite,
And knew just nothing of the matter.

With curling lip, and glancing eye,
Guilt gazed upon the scene a minute,
But Childhood's glance of purity
Had such a holy spell within it,
That the dark demon to the air
Spread forth again his baffled pinion,
And hid his envy and despair,
Self-tortured, in his own dominion.

Then stepped a gloomy phantom up,
Pale, cypress-crowned, night's awful daughter,
And proffered him a fearful cup,
Full to the brim of bitter water:
Poor Childhood bade her tell her name,
And when the beldame muttered 'Sorrow',
He said, -- 'don't interrupt my game,
I'll taste it, if I must, to-morrow.'

The Muse of Pindus thither came,
And wooed him with the softest numbers
That ever scattered wealth and fame
Upon a youthful poet's slumbers;
Though sweet the music of the lay,
To Childhood it was all a riddle,
And 'Oh,' he cried, 'do send away
That noisy woman with the fiddle.'

Then Wisdom stole his bat and ball,
And taught him, with most sage endeavour,
Why bubbles rise, and acorns fall,
And why no toy may last for ever:
She talked of all the wondrous laws
Which Nature's open book discloses,
And Childhood, ere she made a pause,
Was fast asleep among the roses.

Sleep on, sleep on! -- Oh! Manhood's dreams
Are all of earthly pain, or pleasure,
Of Glory's toils, Ambition's schemes,
Of cherished love, or hoarded treasure:
But to the couch where Childhood lies
A more delicious trance is given,
Lit up by rays from Seraph eyes,
And glimpses of remembered heaven!

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