His gathered sticks to stanch the wall

Of the snow-tower, when snow should fall;

The ominous hole he dug in the sand,

And childhood’s castles built or planned;

His daily haunts I well discern,—

The poultry-yard, the shed, the barn,—

And every inch of garden ground

Paced by the blessed feet around,

From the roadside to the brook

Whereinto he loved to look.

Step the meek fowls where erst they ranged;

The wintry garden lies unchanged;

The brook into the stream runs on;

But the deep-eyed boy is gone.

On that shaded day,

Dark with more clouds than tempests are,

When thou didst yield thy innocent breath

In birdlike heavings unto death,

Night came, and Nature had not thee;

I said, ‘We are mates in misery.’

The morrow dawned with needless glow;

Each snowbird chirped, each fowl must crow;

Each tramper started; but the feet

Of the most beautiful and sweet

Of human youth had left the hill

And garden,—they were bound and still.

There’s not a sparrow or a wren,

There’s not a blade of autumn grain,

Which the four season do not tend

And tides of life and increase lend;

And every chick of every bird,

And weed and rock-moss is preferred.

O ostrichlike forgetfulness!

O loss of larger in the less!

Was there no star that could be sent,

No watcher in the firmament,

No angel from the countless host

That loiters round the crystal coast,

Could stoop to heal that only child,

Nature’s sweet marvel undefiled,

And keep the blossom of the earth

Which all her harvests were not worth?

Not mine,—I never called thee mine,

But Nature’s heir,—if I repine,

And seeing rashly torn and moved

Not what I made, but what I loved,

Grow early old with grief that thou

Must to the wastes of Nature go,—

’Tis because a general hope

Was quenched, and all must doubt and grope.

For flattering planets seemed to say

This child should ills of ages stay,

By wondrous tongue, and guided pen,

Bring the flown Muses back to men.

Perchance not he but Nature ailed,

The world and not the infant failed.

It was not ripe yet to sustain

A genius of so fine a strain,

Who gazed upon the sun and moon

As if he came unto his own,

And, pregnant with his grander thought,

Brought the old order into doubt.

His beauty once their beauty tried;

They could not feed him, and he died,

And wandered backward as in scorn,

To wait an aeon to be born.

Ill day which made this beauty waste,

Plight broken, this high face defaced!

Some went and came about the dead;

And some in books of solace read;

Some to their friends the tidings say;

Some went to write, some went to pray;

One tarried here, there hurried one;

But their heart abode with none.

Covetous death bereaved us all,

To aggrandize one funeral.

The eager fate which carried thee

Took the largest part of me:

For this losing is true dying;