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!