You may be Christ or Shakespeare, little child,
A savior or a sun to the lost world —
There is no babe born but may carry furled
Strength to make bloom the world's disastrous wild!
Oh, what then must our labors be to mold you,
To open the heart, to build with dream the brain,
To strengthen the young soul in toil and pain,
Till our age-aching hands no longer hold you —

Vision far-dreamed! — But soft! if your last goal
Be low, if you are only common clay —
What then? Toil lost? Were our toil trebled, nay!
You are a Soul, you are a human Soul,
A greater than the skies by star-hosts trod,
Shakespeare no greater, O you slip of God!