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Rh But deemed that spirits of the air
 * Had left their native homes in heaven,

And that the music warbled there
 * To earth a while was given?

For with that music came the thought
 * That life’s young purity was theirs,

And love, all artless and untaught,
 * Breathed in their woodland airs.

And when, sweet boy! thy baby fingers
 * Wake sounds of heaven’s own harmony,

How welcome is the thought that lingers
 * Upon thy lyre and thee!

It calls up visions of past days,
 * When life was infancy and song

To us; and old remembered lays,
 * Unheard, unheeded long,

Revive in joy or grief within us,
 * Like lost friends wakened from their sleep,

With all their early power to win us
 * Alike to smile or weep.

And when we gaze upon that face,
 * Blooming in innocence and truth,

And mark its dimpled artlessness,
 * Its beauty and its youth;