Classic Poem

And I was once like this! that glowing cheek
Was mine, those pleasure-sparkling eyes; that brow
Smooth as the level lake, when not a breeze
Dies o'er the sleeping surface!—twenty years
Have wrought strange alteration! Of the friends
Who once so dearly prized this miniature,
And loved it for its likeness, some are gone
To their last home; and some, estranged in heart,
Beholding me, with quick-averted glance
Pass on the other side. But still these hues
Remain unalter'd, and these features wear
The look of Infancy and Innocence.
I search myself in vain, and find no trace
Of what I was: those lightly-arching lines
Dark and o'erchanging now; and that sweet face
Settled in these strong lineaments!—There were
Who form'd high hopes and flattering ones of thee,
Young Robert! for thine eye was quick to speak
Each opening feeling: should they not have known,
If the rich rainbow on a morning cloud
Reflects its radiant dyes, the husbandman
Beholds the ominous glory, and foresees
Impending storms!—They argued happily,
That thou didst love each wild and wondrous tale
Of faery fiction, and thine infant tongue
Lisp'd with delight the godlike deeds of Greece
And rising Rome; therefore they deem'd, forsooth,
That thou shouldst tread Preferment's pleasant path.
Ill-judging ones! they let thy little feet
Stray in the pleasant paths of Poesy,
And when thou shouldst have press'd amid the crowd
There didst thou love to linger out the day,
Loitering beneath the laurel's barren shade.
Spirit OF S PENSER ! was the wanderer wrong?