And straight my spirit swooping goes
    Across the waves of time
Till I’m a little boy who knows
    A fence is made to climb;

And bed and lawn and gloomy space
    By thicket overgrown
Are wonderlands where I may trace
    The beckoning Unknown.

But O the cruelty that strikes
    My elder heart with dread
—The writhing form upon the spikes,
    The trickled pool of red!

So, every day I pass and see
    The fence the urchin scales,
The little boy stands up in me
    To curse the iron rails.