Classic Poem

The foster-child forgets his nurse:
She doth but know what he hath been,
Took him for better or for worse,
Would pet him, though he be sixteen.

He helps to weave the soft quadrille;
Ah! leave the parlour door ajar;
Those thirsting eyes shall take their fill,
And watch her darling from afar.

It is her pride to see the hand,
Which wont so wantonly to tear
Her unblanched curls, control the band,
And change the tune, with such an air.

And who so good? she thinks, or who
So fit for partners rich and tall?
Indeed she's looked the ball-room through,
And he's the loveliest lad of all.

So to her lonesome bed: and there,
If any wandering notes she hear,
She'll say in pauses of her prayer,
"He dancing still, my child! my dear!"

His gladness doth on her redound,
Though hair be grey, and eyes be dim:
At every waif of broken sound
She'll wake, and smile, and think of him.

So, noblest of the noble, go
Through regions echoing thy name;
And even on me, thy friend, shall flow
Some streamlet from thy river of fame.

Thou to the gilded youth be kind;
Shed all thy genius-rays on them;
An ancient comrade stands behind
To touch, unseen, thy mantle's hem.

A stranger to thy peers am I,
And slighted, like that poor old crone,
And yet some clinging memories try
To rate thy conquests as mine own.

Nay, when at random drops thy praise
From lips of happy lookers-on,
My tearful eyes I proudly raise,
And bid my conscious self be gone.