The Portrait of a Grandfather

With mild eyes agaze, and lips ready to speak,
Whereon the yearning of love, the warning of wisdom plays,
One portrait ever charms me and teaches me when I seek:
It is of him whom I, remembering my young days,
Imagine fathering my father; when he, in sonship afore,
Liv'd honouring and obeying the eyes now pictur'd agaze,
The lips ready to speak, that promise but speak no more.

O high parental claim, that were not but for the knowing,
O fateful bond of duty, O more than body that bore,
The smile that guides me to right, the gaze that follows my going,
How had I stray'd without thee! and yet how few will seek
The spirit-hands, that heaven, in tender-free bestowing,
Holds to her children, to guide the wandering and aid the weak.

And Thee! ah what of thee, thou lover of men? if truly
A painter had stell'd thee there, with thy lips ready to speak,
In all-fathering passion to souls enchanted newly,
--Tenderer call than of sire to son, or of lover to maiden,--
Ever ready to speak to us, if we will hearken duly,
'Come, O come unto me, ye weary and heavy-laden!'