Not through the high, the blank, the bronze-knobbed door

He comes home, weaned. What is the child,

Compared to everything that came before?

He’ll guard these sunny reaches when he’s more

Than a bare twentieth their age.

Today, his romps would gouge the floor.

In gilded frames is forebears by the score,

Like fools, wait for the wisdom of his eyes.

He now stares at the fountain. We deplore

His sheer, strange littleness

Compared to everything that came before.