Classic Poem

When, after five brief years, I read again
The little book I ventured on the age,
Humbled I meet along the straggling page
The weak and limping children of my pen.
And these are they I deem'd so perfect then!
Scarce one my dissappointment to assuage!—
'Tis well: their imperfection stands a guage
That tells me I have deepen'd in my ken—
There's little more comes to us when we seek
To make our old work a perpetual bay
O, rather, feel our yesterdays were weak,
E'en though we cannot better them to-day.
From work outgrown a higher thought we borrow;
And thought to-day will be a deed to-morrow.