Classic Poem

You seemed so young, to know
So little, those few months or years ago,
Who may by now have disentwined
The inmost secrets of the Eternal Mind.

Yours seemed an easy part,
To construe, learn some trivial lines by heart:
Yet to your hands has God assigned
The burden of the sorrows of mankind.

You passed the brief school year
In expectation of some long career,
Then yielded up all years to find
That long career that none can leave behind.

If you had lived, some day
You would have passed my room, and chanced to say,
‘I wonder if it's worth the grind
Of all those blunders he has underlined.’

Perhaps! if at the end
You in your turn shall teach me how to mend
The many errors whose effect
Eternity awaits us to correct.