| |
| SHE follows me about my House of Life | |
| (This happy little ghost of my dead Youth!) | |
| She has no part in Time’s relentless strife | |
| She keeps her old simplicity and truth— | |
| And laughs at grim Mortality, | 5 |
| This deathless Child that stays with me— | |
| (This happy little ghost of my dead Youth!) | |
| |
| My House of Life is weather-stained with years— | |
| (O Child in Me, I wonder why you stay.) | |
| Its windows are bedimmed with rain of tears, | 10 |
| The walls have lost their rose, its thatch is gray. | |
| One after one its guests depart, | |
| So dull a host is my old heart. | |
| (O Child in Me, I wonder why you stay!) | |
| |
| For jealous Age, whose face I would forget, | 15 |
| Pulls the bright flowers you bring me from my hair | |
| And powders it with snow; and yet—and yet | |
| I love your dancing feet and jocund air. | |
| I have no taste for caps of lace | |
| To tie about my faded face— | 20 |
| I love to wear your flowers in my hair. | |
| |
| O Child in Me, leave not my House of Clay | |
| Until we pass together through the Door, | |
| When lights are out, and Life has gone away | |
| And we depart to come again no more. | 25 |
| We comrades who have travelled far | |
| Will hail the Twilight and the Star, | |
| And smiling, pass together through the Door! | |
| |
