300
  Its dignity; with gifts he bubbles o’er
  As generous as a fountain; selfishness
  May not come near him, nor the little throng
  Of flitting pleasures tempt him from his path;
  The wandering beggars propagate his name, 305
  Dumb creatures find him tender as a nun,
  And natural or supernatural fear,
  Unless it leap upon him in a dream,
  Touches him not.  To enhance the wonder, see
  How arch his notices, how nice his sense 310
  Of the ridiculous; not blind is he
  To the broad follies of the licensed world,
  Yet innocent himself withal, though shrewd,
  And can read lectures upon innocence;
  A miracle of scientific lore, 315
  Ships he can guide across the pathless sea,
  And tell you all their cunning; he can read
  The inside of the earth, and spell the stars;
  He knows the policies of foreign lands;
  Can string you names of districts, cities, towns, 320
  The whole world over, tight as beads of dew
  Upon a gossamer thread; he sifts, he weighs;
  All things are put to question; he must live
  Knowing that he grows wiser every day
  Or else not live at all, and seeing too 325
  Each little drop of wisdom as it falls
  Into the dimpling cistern of his heart: 
  For this unnatural growth the trainer blame,
  Pity the tree.—­Poor human vanity,
  Wert thou extinguished, little would be left 330
  Which he could truly love; but how escape? 
  For, ever as a thought of purer, birth
  Rises to lead him toward a better clime,
  Some intermeddler still is on the watch
  To drive him back, and pound him, like a stray, 335
  Within the pinfold of his own conceit. 
  Meanwhile old grandame earth is grieved to find
  The playthings, which her love designed for him,
  Unthought of:  in their woodland beds the flowers
  Weep, and the river sides are all forlorn. 340
  Oh! give us once again the wishing cap
  Of Fortunatus, and the invisible coat
  Of Jack the Giant-killer, Robin Hood,
  And Sabra in the forest with St. George! 
  The child, whose love is here, at least, doth reap 345
  One precious gain, that he forgets himself.

    These mighty workmen of our later age,
  Who, with a broad highway, have overbridged
  The froward chaos of futurity,
  Tamed to their bidding; they who have the skill 350
  To manage books, and things, and make them act
  On infant minds as surely as the sun
  Deals with a flower; the keepers of our time,
  The guides and wardens of our faculties,
  Sages who in their prescience would control 355
  All accidents, and to the very road