On One Who Lived And Died Where He Was Born

When a night in November     Blew forth its bleared airs     An infant descended     His birth-chamber stairs     For the very first time,     At the still, midnight chime;     All unapprehended     His mission, his aim. -     Thus, first, one November,     An infant descended     The stairs.     On a night in November     Of weariful cares,     A frail aged figure     Ascended those stairs     For the very last time:     All gone his life's prime,     All vanished his vigour,     And fine, forceful frame:     Thus, last, one November     Ascended that figure     Upstairs.     On those nights in November -     Apart eighty years -     The babe and the bent one     Who traversed those stairs     From the early first time     To the last feeble climb -     That fresh and that spent one -     Were even the same:     Yea, who passed in November     As infant, as bent one,     Those stairs.     Wise child of November!     From birth to blanched hairs     Descending, ascending,     Wealth-wantless, those stairs;     Who saw quick in time     As a vain pantomime     Life's tending, its ending,     The worth of its fame.     Wise child of November,     Descending, ascending     Those stairs!