STURDY little form, of true
Saxon pattern, through and through;
Face as purely Saxon, too,
With a smile demure and sly,
Dimpled cheek and twinkling eye;
Robin head, with sideway perk,
O'er some cunning ruse at work;
Welcome, lad! of wholesome ways,
And true juvenile displays;
Now progressing at full speed
On your gay velocipede,
(Yet where'er it deftly goes,
Wronging no one's dress or toes);
Now, beneath the basement hid,
On a dwarfish pyramid
Toiling, with scarred bricks and stone,
After methods, all your own;
A small Cheops! scarce less shrewd
In your purpose and your mood,
Than that king of mobs and mud,
By the old Nilotic flood!
Or with flying scarf and hat,
Coursing some half-frantic cat,
Fraught with wrath, and words that rail,
Should poor Tabby save his tail!
For the "old Adam's" sometimes seen
In your actions and your mien,
Put no more than must appear
In his undegenerate heir.
Grown from what seems nature's plan,
What will Henry be as man?
One of healthful, mental range,
Honored at the doors of 'Change?
Of a quick and eager mind,
At the rise of fortune's wind;
Shrewd! perchance with scores of friends,
And productive dividends?
On life's middle pathway still,
By extremes of good and ill.
Evermore unvisited,
Shall we see him safely tread?
Not ambitious of grand things,
Or the scope of eagle's wings;
But within the limits meet
Of his unpretentious feet,
A good man, perhaps a wise,
Who--(in ledger of the skies),
May--unsmutched by blots of blame,
Find, at last, his honest name?
