Classic Poem

When folk come on, as summer burns,
O'er flower-bloomings, year by year,
To men and women in their turns,
And strive in hope, or toil in fear,
And their sweet children come to show
Before them, each its pretty face,
How friends come, one by one, to know
Whom most they match, of all their race.

" Oh! he is like his sire," some cry,
" Cast in his father's very mould,"
Or " She would fit the very die
Her mother fitted, just as old;"
Or " Ah! that boy has uncle's nose,
Of uncle's shapings more than half,"
Or " Oh! that smiling baby shows
Her aunty Polly's merry laugh."

Thus coming children bring again
The lines and looks of earlier lives,
The gait and ways of father-men,
The smile or voice of long gone wives;
And, oh! how well in tune we see
The copied lines, for ever shown,
Though every coming child shall be
An unmatch'd self, Himself alone.