Edmund William Gosse

The Train of Life

WE traced the bleak ridge, to and fro,
Grave forty, gay fourteen;
While yellow larks, in heaven's blue glow,
Like laughing stars were seen,
And rose-tipp'd larches, fringed below,
Shone fabulously green.

And as I watched my restless son
Leap over gorse and briar,
And felt his golden nature run
With April sap and fire,
Methought another madpate spun
Beside another sire.

Sudden, the thirty years slip by,
Shot like a curtain's rings!
My father treads the ridge, and I
The boy that leaps and flings,
While eyes that in the churchyard lie
Seem smiling tenderest things.