Your face, my boy, when six months old,
We propped you laughing in a chair, —
And the sun-artist caught the gold
Which rippled o'er your waving hair!
And deftly shadowed forth the while
That blooming cheek, that roguish smile,
Those dimples seldom still:
The tiny, wondering, wide-eyed elf!
Now, can you recognize yourself
In that small portrait, Will?

I glance at it, then turn to you,
Where in your healthful ease you stand,
No Beauty, — but a youth as true,
And pure as any in the land!
For Nature, through fair sylvan ways,
Hath led and gladdened all your days,
Kept free from sordid ill;
Hath filled your veins with blissful fire,
And winged your instincts to aspire
Sunward, and Godward, Will!

Long-limbed and lusty, with a stride
That leaves me many a pace behind,
You roam the woodlands, far and wide,
You quaff great draughts of country wind;
While tree and wildflower, lake and stream,
Deep shadowy nook, and sunshot gleam,
Cool vale and far-off hill,
Each plays its mute mysterious part,
In that strange growth of mind and heart,
I joy to witness, Will!

" Can this tall youth, " I sometimes say,
" Be mine? my son? " it surely seems
Scarce further backward than a day,
Since watching o'er your feverish dreams
In that child-illness of the brain,
I thought (O Christ, with what keen pain!)
Your pulse would soon be still, —
That all your boyish sports were o'er,
And I, heart-broken, nevermore
Should call, or clasp you, Will!

But Heaven was kind, Death passed you by;
And now upon your arm I lean,
My second self , of clearer eye,
Of firmer nerve, and sturdier mien;
Through you, methinks, my long-lost youth
Revives, from whose sweet founts of truth,
And joy, I drink my fill:
I feel your every heart-throb, know
What inmost hopes within you glow, —
One soul's between us, Will!

Pray Heaven that this be always so!
That ever on your soul and mine
Though my thin locks grow white as snow, —
The self-same radiant trust may shine; —
Pray that while this, my life, endures,
It aye may sympathize with yours
In thought, aim, action still;
That you, O son (till comes the end),
In me may find your comrade, friend,
And more than father, Will!