Classic Poem

Open your gates for him
Eager and new!
All the world waits for him;
What will he do?

Dear incompletenesses
Blossoming hours!
Feed him with sweetnesses!
Heap him with flowers!

See how he crumbles them,
Shouts like a man!
Tosses and tumbles them
Wide as he can!

Vain is admonishment,
Sermons in vain:—
Gleeful astonishment!
At it again!

Wildness of babyhood!
Passion of play!
Who but a baby would
Wish it away?

Rapt from the Mystery,
Reft from the whole,
Hast thou a history,
Innocent soul?

Gaze we with wondering,
Baby, on thee;—
Sped o'er what sundering
Strait of the sea?

Borne to us hitherward,
Ah! from what shore?
Voyaging whitherward,
Child, evermore?

Little he'll tell for us!
Nothing he knows!
Clear like a bell for us
Laughs as he goes!

Powers supersensible
Breathe through the boy
Incomprehensible
Promise of joy!