THE CHILDREN THAT NEVER GROW UP
THE CHILDREN THAT NEVER GROW UP
"It was perhaps an idle thought
But I imagined that if day by day
I watched him and seldom went away,
And studied all the beatings of his heart
With zeal (as men study some stubborn art
For their own good) and could by patience find
An entrance to the caverns of his mind--
I might reclaim him from his dark estate."
--SHELLEY.
"One man, at least, I know,
Who might wear the crest of Bayard
Or Sidney's plume of snow.
Behold him,
The Cadmus of the blind,
Giving the dumb lips language,
The idiot clay a mind.
Wherever outraged Nature
Asks word or action brave,
Wherever struggles labor,
Wherever groans a slave,--
Wherever rise the peoples,
Wherever sinks a throne,
The throbbing heart of Freedom finds
An answer in his own.
Knight of a better era,
Without reproach or fear!
Said I not well that Bayards
And Sidneys still are here?"
--WHITTIER'S tribute to Dr. Howe.
