Love Songs of Childhood by Eugene Field - HTML preview

SHUFFLE-SHOON AND AMBER-LOCKS

      Shuffle-shoon and Amber-Locks

      Sit together, building blocks;

      Shuffle-Shoon is old and gray,

      Amber-Locks a little child,

      But together at their play

      Age and Youth are reconciled,

      And with sympathetic glee

      Build their castles fair to see.

      "When I grow to be a man"

      (So the wee one's prattle ran),

      "I shall build a castle so—

      With a gateway broad and grand;

      Here a pretty vine shall grow,

      There a soldier guard shall stand;

      And the tower shall be so high,

      Folks will wonder, by and by!"

      Shuffle-Shoon quoth: "Yes, I know;

      Thus I builded long ago!

      Here a gate and there a wall,

      Here a window, there a door;

      Here a steeple wondrous tall

      Riseth ever more and more!

      But the years have leveled low

      What I builded long ago!"

      So they gossip at their play,

      Heedless of the fleeting day;

      One speaks of the Long Ago

      Where his dead hopes buried lie;

      One with chubby cheeks aglow

      Prattleth of the By and By;

      Side by side, they build their blocks—

      Shuffle-Shoon and Amber-Locks.