Two Boyhoods

Luminous passions reign High in the soul of man; and they are twain. Of these he hath made the poetry of earth-- Hath made his nobler tears, his magic mirth.

Fair love is one of these, The visiting vision of seven centuries; And one is love of Nature--love to tears-- The modern passion of this hundred years.

O never to such height, O never to such spiritual light-- The light of lonely visions, and the gleam Of secret splendid sombre suns in dream--

O never to such long Glory in life, supremacy in song, Had either of these loves attained in joy, But for the ministration of a boy.

Dante was one who bare Love in his deep heart, apprehended there When he was yet a child; and from that day The radiant love has never passed away.

And one was Wordsworth; he Conceived the love of Nature childishly As no adult heart might; old poets sing That exaltation by remembering.

For no divine Intelligence, or art, or fire, or wine, Is high-delirious as that rising lark-- The child's soul and its daybreak in the dark.

And Letters keep these two Heavenly treasures safe the ages through, Safe from ignoble benison or ban-- These two high childhoods in the heart of man.