Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.
By George EdgarMontgomery1267 To a Child
I
Dear child with those undarkened eyes
Like glimpses of transparent skies—
And dream of things which have no place
Things that no ten-year-old has yet
Dared in his roguish wit to set
To thought, or word, or rhythmic line.
Better the child should be a child,
That he should grow as glad and wild
As flowers upon a river’s brink.
And be as if this ancient earth
Were but the resting-place of mirth
Since time was born and joy begun.
Forgetful of the days which fly,
Forgetful of the nights which die,
And sipping sweetness like the bee.
Childhood is but a passing spring,
Loath to await the burgeoning
Of summer and its fiery stir.…
I cannot turn the long years back,
And life for me has ploughed its track;
The man must be the man, as willed;
Our languid-hearted poets make,
Nor such as many love to wake
From fable or the Grecian lay;
That yearns with all its human might
To steal the secrets of the night,
To reach some high millennial goal.
Of a vast century to its close,
Sublime in its titanic throes,
And in its plummet ocean-deep—
With fearless striving, fearless hope,
Whose larger mind and wider scope
In one eternal progress tend.…
And thine will be the swifter pace;
When thou shalt be as I, the race
Will scorn the marvels of the dead.
That all I wonder at will seem
Like the first mistings of a dream
Which dawns into a perfect star.