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Home  »  Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse  »  When I see childhood on the threshold seize

Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.

By Robert Bridges (1844–1930)

When I see childhood on the threshold seize

 
WHEN I see childhood on the threshold seize
The prize of life from age and likelihood,
I mourn time’s change that will not be withstood,
Thinking how Christ said, Be like one of these.
For in the forest among many trees        5
Scarce one in all is found that hath made good
The virgin pattern of its slender wood,
That courtesied in joy to every breeze;
But scathed, but knotted trunks that raise on high
Their arms in stiff contortion, strained and bare:        10
Whose crowns in patriarchal sorrow sigh.
So little children ye—nay, nay, ye ne’er
From me shall learn how sure the change and nigh,
When ye shall share our strength and mourn to share.