WE traced the bleak ridge, to and fro, <br />Grave forty, gay fourteen; <br />While yellow larks, in heaven's blue glow, <br />Like laughing stars were seen, <br />And rose-tipp'd larches, fringed below, <br />Shone fabulously green. <br /> <br />And as I watched my restless son <br />Leap over gorse and briar, <br />And felt his golden nature run <br />With April sap and fire, <br />Methought another madpate spun <br />Beside another sire. <br /> <br />Sudden, the thirty years slip by, <br />Shot like a curtain's rings! <br />My father treads the ridge, and I <br />The boy that leaps and flings, <br />While eyes that in the churchyard lie <br />Seem smiling tenderest things.<br /><br />Edmund William Gosse<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-train-of-life-3/
