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.